Truthiness and Bacon

"Truthiness" is a weasel word that I thoroughly despise and the definition will tell you why:  Truthiness - the quality of seeming or being felt to be true even if not necessarily true.

Another definition points out that what you think/feel/intuit is true tops the real truth.  Which goes far to explain several political campaigners' verbal "truths."  "Oh, it's sorta, kinda true" doesn't fly with me.  It is or it isn't.  Period. 

Very well, as there is nothing I can do on the national level to refute this deplorable trend, let us turn to domestic matters, namely food.  And I am very, very interested in food.  Not so much - or at all - in national matters.  "Stick to what you know, kid" - someone famous said it.  Not that I can remember who it was.

Bacon.  Bacon comes two ways - raw and you fry it up yourself and "Fully Cooked" which, in my experience isn't.  I have tried several kinds - Trader Joe's label in a bright orange box in their meat departments and a couple of Kroger/Ralph's brands such as "Simple Truths." 

The latter alarmed me more than somewhat because while reading the Simple Truth's box info I read that the pigs that made the bacon were fed a totally vegetarian diet.  This raised all sorts of questions and none of them were pleasant.  Did previous pig diets include small animals?  Small or fattish children?   Were either or both raised as a cash crop in the bacon industry? 

Let us not dwell on possible responses to these pressing questions. 

"Fully Cooked" in the bacon circles I've visited include the fact that to eat them, you have to nuke them - briefly, albeit.  Or quickly pan fry them which more or less destroys any image you may have had of tearing open the box and shoving strips of "done" bacon into your mouth.   Still 20 seconds in a paper towel in the microwave is a lot faster than standing at the stove cooking raw bacon, turning it and turning it until it's done.  For the impatient among us (and I am one of their leaders) this is not bad.

Applications for nearly fully cooked bacon - nuke a strip to give crunchiness to your chipotle chicken sandwich on white air bread.  Boar's Head makes a great chipotle-flavored mayo and altogether, it makes a good sandwich.

Or try this with scallops - saute 6 sea scallops, drain the liquid and set the "dry" scallops on a plate.  Nuke the jar of Bacon Jam (it gets crunchy after prolonged refrigerator life) so you can daub some across the top of each scallop.  Having nuked 2 strips of bacon, cut them in thirds and garnish the top of each scallop.  The very faint hint of vinegar in the jam accessorizes the sweetness of the scallops and provides a nice non-alarming ping! in your mouth. 

If you don't like Bacon Jam, try orange marmalade... 

And Kroger, Ralph's, Trader Joe?  Label this bacon as "Almost fully cooked."  Don't give us "truthiness" with our bacon.  We don't like it.