Homemade Bacon (Not Made by Me)

There was a time when Dr. H spent his days learning creole, talking about post-structuralism, and generally transforming from a student into an intellectual. But even when he was at his most anthropologically sophisticated, Dr. H was always drawn to the earthier side of things.

For instance, he decided he needed some money. You might think that graduate students with funding have money, but you would need to think again about that. Graduate students, especially in central Florida, got nuthin'. So Dr. H sweet-talked his way into the kitchen at a local restaurant. He spent a couple of years churning out cheesecakes and muffins and learning to make all kinds of interesting sweets (often in portions suitable for 50 people).

You know what they say about change, right? So Dr. H now works in SoCal, where he uses math and stuff and helps people understand stuff and stuff. I don't know what he does, stop asking me.

But he still loves the foodstuffs. And the earthier the better. So, of course, he made his own bacon. [Technically, "we" made bacon. I dunno who "we" are, but it sounds interesting...]

He started with 48 lbs. of pork (yes, 48 lbs. He says that's the bacon from 5 pigs. See what I meant about portion size?).

Then he made three rubs with differing flavor elements (like brown sugar and bay and maple).


Then he cut up the meat, put it into plastic bags with the various rubs and marinades rubbed and marinated, and let it cure for 7 days. Yes, a week. You have to turn it over periodically so the marinade/rub does its thing on both sides.

Dr. H has always been a fan of this kind of preparation. Once, in about 1994, he got an itch to make flavored liqueur. That involved a liter of vodka, a pint of raspberries, and the zest of a lemon. Put it all in a brown apple juice bottle, let it sit in a cool, dark place for 2 weeks (shaking gently every day), and strain. Voila! Raspberry liqueur. It was an intense, shocking pink.

After the 7 days are up, you take it out of the bags, wash the meat, pat it dry, and then let it dry cure in the fridge for another day.

Once the bacon is done in the fridge (see above - that's a lot of bacon in the fridge! I'm guessing that "we" ate out that week), you smoke the meat. Dr. H smoked it with apple and pecan wood, and he got the meat up to 150 degrees F.

After that, you remove the skin (apparently this is easier once the meat has cooked) and store it. They vacuum sealed it so the meat would last longer, which seems like a good idea when you make 48 lbs. of bacon. I mean, even I cannot imagine eating that much bacon in, say, a week.

Sliced, it looks like this:

So what's the moral of this story? If someone asks you, "what will you do with a PhD in Anthropology?" you can tell them: Make Bacon! Or, you know, understand human society. But mostly, Make Bacon!