Why Spain, the Country With the World’s Best Ham, Makes Such Terrible Bacon

daily beast ^

[mylife]

n the Notes app on my phone, I keep a list called “Ingredients to Buy in the U.S.” Horseradish, cake flour, molasses, Chex Mix—I can’t find certain American foods in Madrid, so I lug them back with me, weight allowances be damned. But customs always swipes my most prized Proustian treasure, one that’s absent, astoundingly, in the Iberian Peninsula: good bacon. Smoky, crispy, sizzling slices of American-style bacon.

Bacon is Spain’s biggest culinary disappointment. Flabby, elastic, and chronically undercooked, it’s always too thick or too thin, too salty or too bland. It boasts neither the heady campfire scent of American bacon nor a whit of its tantalizing crispness. Bite into Spanish bacon, and it often bites you back, with nubbins of untrimmed cartilage cracking audibly between your teeth. The more bacon I spat into napkins in Spain, the more puzzled I became. Surely the culture that gave us chorizo and torreznos and exquisite Ibérico ham could make great bacon. So why was it nowhere to be found?

As I started digging for answers, I couldn’t help wondering, AITA? We food writers are an insufferable, persnickety lot; it’s how we make our living. Yet apparently misery loves company as much as Americans in Madrid love to whine about Spanish bacon. “It’s the color for me,” lamented my Ohioan friend Marlee, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Too pink. It’s creepy.” Her roommate Regina, from Long Island, was quick to pile on: “As far as I’m concerned, there is no bacon in Madrid,” to which Melissa, from Queens, replied, “There was bacon on the table this morning. I gave mine away.”

[mylife]

That will not do pig!!

[mylife]

[Scarlett156]

There’s a meme in this somewhere: “It was all lank and rank and greasy and flabby, like...Spanish bacon.” (Sorry, in poor taste!)

[Carriage Hill]

Don’t they know how to smoke meat?

[mylife]

it aint hard to make.

[BBQToadRibs2]

[dangus]

Could be worse: Could be Canadian.

[Reily]

The Spanish who went to the Caribbean in the 1600s-1700s knew how to do it. Th term “buccaneer” basically means bacon maker ! I guess grilling & barbecue was something pirates did when they weren't sailing around robbing ships and saying “Arrg” !

[mylife]

nasty stuff

[mylife]

the dog will love you!

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Nar matey. It’s the sea (C) we love.

[BlueLancer]

The premise is wrong in the first place ...

Polish hams are the best!

[Carriage Hill]

Back in the 80s, when I lived in NJ and worked in Midtown, I used to buy whole Parma Hams & Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese wheels from an importer/distributor friend. Best of the best.

[alexander_busek]

The Spanish who went to the Caribbean in the 1600s-1700s knew how to do it. Th term “buccaneer” basically means bacon maker ! I guess grilling & barbecue was something pirates did when they weren't sailing around robbing ships and saying “Arrg” !

The term buccaneer was taken from the Spanish bucanero and derives from the Caribbean Arawak word buccan, a wooden frame on which Tainos and Caribs slowly roasted or smoked meat, commonly manatee.

-Wikipedia

Manatee bacon... mmmm...

Regards,

[WMarshal]

"It was all lank and rank and greasy and flabby, like...Spanish bacon."

I think you accidentally describe the aging process of man

[WMarshal]

Manatee. It’s what’s for dinner!

[mylife]

Poles know piggies!

[dfwgator]

We found out the hard way that we couldn’t bring the jamon we bought in Spain back home, had to eat it on the plane.

[dfwgator]

Tak jest!

[mylife]

best flight evah!!