07 February 2009
 
Making Bacon

 
(Bacon Torpedo)
 
Listening to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this morning, apparently a deal has been struck to bring two moderate Republicans into the fold, and secure the sixty-one votes needed to pass the stimulus bill.
 
Both of the renegades are from Maine, and I have had a chance to work their staffs before, back in the days we were whacking the base at Brunswick off the active roles. They seem nice enough ladies, Ms Snow and Collins, and I suppose we should be grateful for that. For all the pork that is in the bill, they stood their ground for a little while and then caved in the interest of the nation.
 
Mr. Reid was threatening to bring secular saint Ted Kennedy back from Florida where he is struggling with brain cancer. The inconvenience to the living icon was cited as a reason to pass the bill, which shows you the depth of urgency associated with the process.
 
I’m sorry for Mr. Kennedy, and for all the travails of the family, but really, I think the man should have been in jail, not the Senate. He would have been out with enough time to start all over again, like the rest of us.
 
The whole thing is ugly, all the posturing and theatre, and it is best not held up to an enormous amount of scrutiny, like the making of sausage. The fine print on the $900 billion dollar piece of legislation is not immediately available for review. Perhaps God knows what is in it, but it is safe to say that no one will have really digested it by the time it is passed on Monday and reconciled with the House version, already in hand.
 
Even in Arlington I can feel the reason for the urgency. The parade of the day laborers to the feeding program across the street is real enough, and much larger than it was. The cool new Mom I talked to on the elevator yesterday told me the recession had penetrated to the 6th floor at Big Pink. She had her little guy in one of those high-tech wheeled transporters, completely covered in knits of blue-tinged argyle.
 
I asked how she was doing, and she said the first week of day-care was the last one. As the car arrived at my floor I looked back quizzically- poor quality of service?
 
“No,” she said. “Got laid off from the job on the first day back from Maternity Leave.”
 
I got off the elevator with my mouth still agape as the door closed and she disappeared up the shaft.
 
Being Friday, the dog and I had to make plans for the evening. The weekend stretched out before us, with nothing on the agenda except writing two proposals and a couple hundred e-mail from the office.
 
I could have gone out, I suppose, but my heart just wasn’t in it. My neighbor being out of work hit me harder than the parade of anonymous men trooping across the parking lot. I guess that shows you how shallow I am. And in that vein, I thought I might stay in and cook instead.
 
There was something so awful that I just wanted to try. At some point. Some day.
 
I use awful with a sense of precision here, since it includes the root word “awe.” That means to be overcome by a feeling of wonder, admiration or fear. I had been hit by the juxtaposition of opportunity and concept, and it happened at the end of the meat aisle at the Ft. Myer Commissary.
 
As you have gathered, each of the military facilities in Washington have the personalities of the agencies that run them. The Air Force manages the Commissary at Bolling. Their groceries are great, but the Service itself is a bit prudish. Their cigarettes (and liquor at the Class Six Store) are much more expensive than the blue-collar Army, as a sort of sin tax. Accordingly, my destination depends on which addiction I need to address.
 
There is food pornography, you know. Some people have a weakness for the desserts and cakes in Gourmet and Southern Living magazines. I have a weakness for Southern Barbeque. I buy cookbooks and travelogues centered on rib-shacks and sauces, and the deep-pit cooking I cannot do at Big Pink. Along the way, I ran across something so terrifying that I involuntarily looked up to ensure that no one saw me looking at it.
 
The recipe was for something called the “Bacon Explosion,” a torpedo-shaped monstrosity that combines everything from the wrong food groups just like the stimulus package on the hill.
 
Let’s face it: Bacon is wrong on so many levels that it is almost impossible to begin to enumerate. I had a pal who was an excellent cook and rarely ate anything who turned me on to a brand called Kugel’s, relatively lean, hardwood-smoked, and thick slices. I used to purchase one of the five-pound packages and it would be good for six months, lying in guilty state in the meat drawer in the fridge.
 
Maybe it is the recession, and a need for a comfort breakfast of crisp bacon and eggs with biscuits, I don’t know. But there has been a clear resurgence of interest in bacon over the last year. The floods in the Midwest last summer reduced grain output, and that impacted the feed-lots down the road. Bacon production was hit hard- pork belly futures soared in price.
 
Like the recession, it was global in reach. For two straight days last September, thieves stole the complete bacon inventory from a supermarket chain in Lancashire in the UK. Shopkeepers there are now keeping all their bacon locked securely in the refrigerated stockroom, much as the Ft Myer Commissary keeps their cigarettes. If patrons want to purchase bacon they now have to ask for it upon checkout and the bacon will be brought out to them.
 
In some places, bacon has soared 100% in price. A box of bacon was sent to House minority leader Rep. John Boehner’s office to protest his recent “yes” vote on President Bush’s $700 billion financial industry bailout plan. God may know what they are sending to Senator Reid this week.
 
The bacon is not under lock and key at the Commissary, not yet. But what happened the other day nearly made my knees buckle. I passed by all the fresh cuts, the salmon, steaks, briskets, tenderloins, lamb and chicken, and arrived at the bargain frozen bin at the end before turning onto the dairy and cheese nook. Unusual for a Saturday, the freezer was filled to the brim with ground pork.
 
I had to think fast. What was in that obscene recipe? Ground pork, for sure, and bacon. BBQ rub and sauce, of course, but I have enough in the post-attack survival kit that those staples were not an issue. All I needed was bacon and ground pork. I could fake the rest. I scooped up several packages, enough for any legislation or dinner I might conceive and headed back to the sausage and lunchmeat aisl. I picked up a package of Kugel bacon, the one that showed the most lean meat on the end slice that you can see.
 
It is fake, of course, a lean slice placed there to fool you, but no matter. After all, you are buying bacon, for Christ’s sake.
 
That was the thing about the recipe that intrigued me the most. I like textiles. Tunnel Eight is filled with rugs of intricate design and bold tribal color. The Explosion called for a woven mat of bacon, not dissimilar in color and context from the ones they taught us to weave out of construction paper in elementary school.
 
I was thinking about my neighbor, and wondering about me as I made a drink and assembled the ingredients. The dog looked on with intense interest, his dark eyes radiating need.
 
Let’s see:  
 
2 pounds thick cut bacon
2 pounds bulk ground sausage, seasoned to taste
1 jar Captain Curt’s original Chicago Boss Sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s Hot and Spicy sauce is an alternative)
1 jar Captain Curt’s Boss Rub, or a decent barbeque rub
 
I got a cookie sheet and covered it with foil to create a working surface. Then I began to construct a weave of bacon, five strips by five strips, over and under, tight as I could make it.
 
Then a layer of rub, patted in nicely. Captain Curt is an icon in Chicago, and his is superb. My son is a devotee and keeps me supplied. If you can’t get it, or make your own, any commercial rub will do.
 
In a separate bowl, mash up the two pounds of ground pork with the seasonings you like. I use kosher salt, fresh ground black and red pepper and crushed garlic. You can save time and substitute Italian loose sausage, if you wish, hot or mild, but that is not what the Commissary had, and you have to do what you have to do. Meanwhile, crisp fry another pound of bacon in the skillet, drain and set aside.
 
Take two pounds of the ground pork mixture and pat it onto the bacon mat. Press it all the way to the edges of the weave in a constant thickness. Then comes construction of what will be the inner core.
 
Personally, I like the idea of my bacon right at the point when it begins to turn translucent and the lean meat is dark and rich. Once is it cooled, crumble into bite-sized pieces and pat into the sausage layer. Drizzle some Captain Curt’s Boss Sauce over the crumbled bacon and dust with some rub.
 
My thought is you could add finely chopped sautéed mushrooms, onions and green and red peppers, but I didn’t have any fresh.
 
At this point you essentially have a pork and bacon pizza, which is a disquieting enough image. Steel yourself. Roll the flat patty up with the bacon weave on the outside until you have a torpedo-shaped weapon of pork destruction. Keep the seam on the bottom so that it does not lose structural integrity while cooking.
 
It I could have a smoker on the balcony; I would do it out there. The Condo Board would be all over my butt if I did, though, like that guy on the third floor who was ejected from the building for flagrant and repeated use of a propane grill. I had to admire his style, even if he is homeless now.
 
You are looking for an internal temperature of around 165 degrees, enough to kill off the bad stuff, and I have found that 225 on the oven gets me there in about an hour per inch in thickness.
 
The Pork Torpedo was about two and a half inches in diameter, so two and a half hours is what I set the timer for.
 
That left me time to play the ball game with the dog, stand out on the balcony and watch the end of the feeding time across the street. The unit filled up with the savory smell of cooking bacon and barbeque sauce. At the end game, I basted the torpedo with Captain Curt’s sauce, which has enough sugar to glaze nicely. Remember, your Carolina-style vinegar-based sauces just don’t do it.
 
When the timer went off, I peeked into the oven. The Torpedo was brown and tight, with the patterned texture of the bacon weave and a rich dark shiny reflection from the cause glaze.
 
I pulled it out to let it cool and marveled at it. They tell me that if you slice the Torpedo into half-inch rounds you will see a pinwheel effect from the roll-up, and it sits on the plate fine by itself, or on top of a warm sliced Pillsbury Grands biscuit.
 
As usual, the smell and the act of cooking were enough for me, and the Torpedo went into a white Corning dish, then into a plastic bag, and then into the refrigerator, much to the dog’s disappointment. I didn’t know quite what to do with the thing. The performance art was sufficient for a Friday night.
 
I thought maybe I could hand out torpedo sandwiches to the guys headed to the soup kitchen, but on the other hand, they might be watching their cholesterol. 

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com