Slab Bacon

[ohioyankee]

Hello to all, I was just wondering what everyone is paying for slab bacon to use as salt pork. I just ordered some and it was expensive (at least I thought)

[1stMo Drummer]

Re: Slab Bacon

Im not sure of prices but was wonderign where you ordered yours from ?

[Charles Heath]

Re: Slab Bacon

Kenton,

You can pay more. You can pay less. This is typically the benchmark for mail order:

Scott Hams has bacon

[MLovejoy]

Re: Slab Bacon

Out here in PA, I went to my local butcher a few weeks back and paid about $4.50/lb. This website has been thrown up here before, and the price actually looks pretty decent, but you'd have to factor in S&H.

http://www.scotthams.com/index.php?method=ProductList&GroupsId=3

[ohioyankee]

Re: Slab Bacon

Wow, the stuff at http://www.scotthams.com/index.php?m...ist&GroupsId=3 is a lot less expensive, I ordered 2 pounds at 7 or 8 dollars a pound, then again it was special order, they normally don't sell it. I'll have to order from scotthams next time around. Thanks for the information...

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Slab Bacon

How about a cask of English bacon ?

London Star - May 8, 1863

"The steamer Gladiator,which sailed from Liverpool last week, took on board 1,500 barrels of bread and 1,045 casks of bacon. The Gladiator cleared for Nassau, but there is but little doubt that her cargo is destined for a Confederate port."

The Daily Dispatch
October 31, 1864

Steamers arrived.

Two vessels lately arrived at a Confederate port; one having, as a portion of its freight, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of English bacon, and the other two hundred thousand, for the use of the Confederate army.

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: Slab Bacon

How about a cask of English bacon ?

I'll have to dig out my account from the Institute (Virginia Military Institute) importing "Nassau Bacon", "English Pickled Beef" and "Red Potatoes".

[davidf]

Re: Slab Bacon

I am just wondering, why is slab bacon so similar to salt pork? I always knew that slab bacon was similar, but I never knew why.

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Slab Bacon

I am just wondering, why is slab bacon so similar to salt pork? I always knew that slab bacon was similar, but I never knew why.

Do a search there is plenty here on hawg products

My exp is that salt pork or the modern version thereof is brine cured (sodium /nitrite based) and slab bacon, aside from being anatomically different cuts swine wise, is dry cured with sodium and smoke.

With respect to English Bacon, I have consumed bacon in the UK and parts of formerly English colonized Africa and India...it is different than what we eat in the US.

I wonder if noticeably different and how it was for a Johnny in a trench perhaps in Petersburg in 1864 ?

[tenfed1861]

Re: Slab Bacon

I am not sure where they got the bacon for Pickett's Mill a couple of weeks ago,but that stuff was good.Try and e-mail they about it.

[Chad Wrinn]

Re: Slab Bacon

Anyone know a good place to get slab bacon in southeast Kentucky?

[Charles Heath]

Re: Slab Bacon

I am just wondering, why is slab bacon so similar to salt pork?

David,

It isn't.

By the way, if you are looking at the Hormel one-pound chunks of "bacon" and "salt pork" in the specialty meat gondola in Kenny's Market in G'burg, well, that's not what you want, although both will do in a pinch if they are the last thing on Earth you can possibly find. Virginia Mescher's article about salt pork is worth reading. It may or may not be in the Veranda, but it was one of those "WOW!" articles that would hit the Watchdog every once in a great while.

Pennsylvania has about as many butcher shops as Maryland has liquor stores, so you may have better luck checking with these local meat shops:

BUCHER MEATS

391 Tillie Town Rd 334-3575
Biglerville, PA 17307-9552

BUTCHER BLOCK

3055 Biglerville Rd 677-7977
Biglerville, PA 17307-9219

CHAPEL-RIDGE FARMS

680 Barlow Greenmount Rd 334-5684
Gettysburg, PA 17325-8709

CHAPEL-RIDGE MEAT & MERCANTILE

5 Chapel Ridge Rd 334-4222
Gettysburg, PA 17325-8669

SHRIVERS MEATS

16436 Four Points Bridge Rd (301) 447-2255
Emmitsburg, MD

SHUFF’S MEAT MARKET

12247 Baugher Rd (301) 271-2231
Thurmont, MD 21788-2333

We used to have a great source for slab bacon in the form of Hemp's Meats in Jefferson, but they no longer carry smoked slab bacon. I guess I was the only customer who used to buy 2oo-300 pounds at a pop. Sigh.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Slab Bacon

Go to the British Isles today and order "bacon" with your English Breakfast and you'll get a cut of meat we in the States would call exactly "Virginia salt-cured country ham"... I got this every time I had breakfast in Scotland, Ireland, and England.

... IMHO, I would feel this would be true even 140+ years ago.

And boy is it good over there too... ;)

-Johnny Lloyd

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Slab Bacon

The traditional English "fry up". Put a cardiologist on speed dial.

I previously posted a period account of 450,000 lbs worth being imported in two (combined) blockade ran instances. Lets assume 1/4 or so is accurate.... less the newspaper hype.

That's alot of ham-baconie goodness when handed to a starving ol boy been living in the dirt at the End Game. 3rd Quarter 64 who you rushing these provisions to ? Contemplation of historical pork hypotheticals is a sickness.

[Prodical Reb]

Re: Slab Bacon

This slab bacon from Virginia Traditions is pretty good facsimile! You can order directly from the website:

http://virginiatraditions.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_078B

It's very good, right out of the smokehouse slab bacon. They deliver right to your door via FedEx!