Consuming Interest
Saving on the Bacon
By LESLIE ADRIAN TODAY the snap, crackle, pop of the cereal packet dominates the British breakfast table. The leisured luxury of our bacon-and-egg days is reserved for country holidays and after church on Sunday.
War-time rationing showed us that there were other things to eat for breakfast : even snoek and potato cakes. Today most of us get our own breakfast and, persuaded by the big guns of the cereal companies who tempt us with sheriffs' badges, midget submarines and crested tea- spoons, we have turned to the ready-cooked packet meal.
This has left the bacon producers of Europe wondering how to save theirs. The market is now tipped heavily in favour of the consumer; prices have come down accordingly. Most are lower than they have been for eighteen months and some varieties have come down sixpence a pound in the past few weeks.
Now, I think, is the time for us to be a bit more choosy about the quality of the bacon we see in such profusion on the grocer's slab. Not all of it is good and often, I regret to say, British is not always best. The Danes are now running neck and neck with British producers and together they make up the bulk of the market, and you can also buy Polish, Dutch, Hungarian and Irish bacon in this country.
I cannot honestly say, after sampling the various types in'recent weeks, that I have found one outstandingly better than the rest. Among British bacons, those from Northern Ireland are good. I have also enjoyed the higher grades of Danish 'green,' or unsmoked, rashers. But the trouble with many bacons is that they are over- salted. I am furious when, after frying some rashers, the carefully preserved patina of my frying pan—which is wiped and never washed— is ruined by sticky granules of salt.
Oversalting is one result of the present uncer- tainty of the market. Producers are afraid they will not be able to dispose of supplies speedily; so, in the hope that the bacons will keep longer, they tend to use extra salt in the curing. Nearly all bacons and gammons are preserved by the salt-brine method; usually, only hams—the com- plete leg of pork—are cured by the dry method, in which salt is rubbed into the meat. The Bacon Information Council tells me you can test the salt in bacon by taking cook's licence and rubbing your finger on the uncooked lean. The salt you taste will give you a good idea of how strong it will be in the cooked meat. If it is too salty, the remedy is to poach the bacon in cold water. Bring it slowly to the boil and dry care- fully before grilling or frying.
With gammon joints it is sometimes necessary to steep in cold water overnight or even longer. Still, at prices around 4s. 4d. a pound they are an excellent buy just now. After steeping, the joint should be simmered slowly, allowing about twenty minutes to the pound. You can finish it off in the oven by removing the skin and then covering with cloves and brown sugar.
The Bacon Information Council is also en- couraging us to eat grilled gammon cut thick like steaks. I have tried these and they can be excellent. Ask the grocer for 'gammon cut' at numbers 12 or 15 on the machine. Poach, dry and then brush with butter before grilling, as you would a beef steak.
Because fats are unfashionable today and the housewife prefers a high-protein lean bacon, the breeders have been developing longer and leaner pigs in recent years. But some bacon experts argue that the quality and thickness of the fat determine the subtlety of the flavour; and they arc against the current trend. I am inclined to agree. Oversalting is not the only trouble; a great deal of bacon today is flavourlesS.
Often the makers try to mask this lack of flavour by smoking the bacon—popular in the South, but in Scotland and the North people pre- fer their bacon 'green.' I have looked long and unsuccessfully for a mild-cured, not-too-lean bacon in London and one I have at last found to my liking is the famous Ayrshire Roll, which Selfridges tell me they usually stock at 5s a pound. I had an old-fashioned prejudice that I liked to see the grocer slice my rashers on the machine, but I now realise that you can judge quality better when you see the sliced bacon laid out on the counter. A good rasher should be a Sleep pink and not a fresh red. The fat should be white and not yellow. Always avoid rashers with a wet look. I find that the so-called high-class grocers do not necessarily stock the best bacons; you can often get a better choice at better prices at the big chain stores. Sainsburys are reliable for most varieties. David Grieg stock only choice Danish; and, in the trade, the Home and Colonial arc noted for good Polish bacon.
If anybody tries to tell me that the English are not interested in good food, I shall be able to give them the lie : up to the time of writing I have had over a thousand requests for my list of London restaurants. Some of you have already sent in comments—on the whole, I am relieved to find, favourable, though naturally everybody has his exceptions, places which should be on and aren't, or vice versa. Usually, where a good restaurant is not on my list it is for one of the reasons I gave; but I would be the first to admit that there are a dozen which could be, and were not included simply because we wanted to keep it short.
May I add one qualification, which I should have made earlier? Some restaurants which do not have a licence and which send out to the local pub for wine (or let you bring your own) are more expensive than the normal range kept to in this list. This appears to me to be reasonable; the owner has to make his money on the meal alone —and you save on the wine. As in many res- taurants a bottle of wine costs twice what it does at a wine merchant's, it is foolish to compute prices from the menu alone without reference to the wine list.
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