SC - medieval bacon

[Stefan li Rous]

I asked about medieval bacon and Lord Ras and Adamantius answered:

>LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
>> The basic idea of bacon being smoked side pork has not changed. However, the
>> production methods for mass marketing of bacon has changed producing a far
>> inferior product than our recent ancestors would have been used to.

>Can you say, "Water added..."?
>Adamantius

I was wondering in what ways Ras considered today's product inferior (Ras, are
there *any* of today's grocery products you think have improved?) but Adamantius
does indicate one. Although perhaps I'm just picky but I think the amount of
fat on the modern bacon has gotten higher in the past eighteen years I have 
been shopping. I tend to pick and choose until I find a product with minimal
and streaked fat and stay away from the packages that hide most of the product
from view.

We had a discussion a while back here about dried, smoked hams. For a little 
while, my local HEB grocery was carrying these hams. But only in large chunks
at big forty dollar plus prices. About when I decided I had room and could 
buy one they stopped carrying them. Oh yes, now I remember, these were the
Smithfield hams. I did note though that there were Smithfield hams in the
same case that had water added. I've been meaning to check to see if they
can order me one.

So anyway, is it possible to buy dried, smoked bacon these days?

And for the Canadians here, do you call that ham-like meat Canadian bacon
or is that an American term? From the descriptions here, bacon does seem to
be the pork side and not the legs, which is what it would seem "Canadian
Bacon" is.

Thanks.
  Stefan li Rous
  stefan at texas.net
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================