Full-Flavored Meat

Guanciale from Herb Eckhouse in Iowa

Although I’ve known about guanciale for ages, and certainly have eaten it here and there, it was pretty much out of my eating routines until I got to working on it for the upcoming little Zing-published bacon book to be (not done yet but getting there!). As with so many things we sell here, hardly anyone in this area is likely to know guanciale. But of course they didn’t know about balsamic vinegar twenty years ago and look where that’s …

Dogs Love Bacon

this item is currently on vacation

Maize ‘n’ Blue Hush Puppies with Bacon Fat at the Roadhouse

“Dig daddy, its a natural fact,
It’s sweepin’ the South, that thing they call the Bacon Fat!”

Andre Williams

I hate to admit it, but you know how certain really stupid commercials sometimes stick in your head to the point where, like ten years later, you still have them embedded in your brain and there’s just no getting them out? Maybe it’s just …

Ode to Zingerman’s Pulled Pork Sandwich

Ah The Joys of Pork, circumcision notwithstanding;
Our inheritance of dread from Adam notwithstanding;
I sit alone in post-prandial bliss in Zingerman’s Roadhouse.
(Whoever is not guilty—complicit in his or her comfort
Of daily immoral acts in these end times—cast the first stone.
Even Nestle’s (“. . . the very best chaw-clate”) beans
Are harvested by child slaves in Ivory Coast.) But,
Postmodern in its social responsibility toward fine eating (accept killing)
12-dollar-mac-and-cheese-Zingerman’s Roadhouse with their philosophy
Of excellence at …

Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Bacon

Nueske’s bacon is hardly new news around here. Since we’ve been using it extensively for over 25 years now it’s probably one of the best known products in the ZCoB. But it came up about ten times this weekend and I figured the food fates were telling me something so . . . here it is.

The bacon came up because we had the special bake of Peppered Bacon Farm bread this weekend. Since the special bake is over with, …

Alex’s Red Rage Barbeque Sauce

My eating habits have changed a lot since I was a kid. When I was thirteen years old I was happily having grilled cheese sandwiches made from pre-sliced plastic wrapped American cheese singles on white bread, Kraft macaroni and cheese, Pop Tarts, and Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks fried up “fresh” from the freezer, and other great American grocery store icons from three or four decades ago. (Actually, now that I think about it, all of those foods are probably still …