Text 12844, 72 rader
Skriven 2008-08-28 08:37:12 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
Ärende: Bacon Salt
==================
You have almost certainly heard of Bacon Salt, the relatively new 
variety of seasoning salt that has been all the rage virtually from 
the moment it was released.

Yes, Bacon Salt. To read the reviews, one would think that this is 
the most significant culinary development since the discovery of 
fire. But is it really? Could any flavored salt be worthy of the 
amount of praise that Bacon Salt has garnered? Or is it just a 
case of The Emperor's New Salt?

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the Internet, I will tell 
you this: Bacon Salt is good, but it ain't All That.

I bought all three varieties of Bacon Salt to taste and compare. 
I tried them on vegetables, meat, and potatoes, and here are my 
impressions:

    * Original Bacon Salt - The Original flavor is not very good. 
      It tastes mostly like putting a drop of salty Liquid Smoke 
      on the food, though there are "bacony" undertones (which are 
      most likely provided by the "natural and artificial flavors" 
      listed on the label.) If only it tasted more like bacon and 
      less like really cheap barbecue-flavor potato chips. I am 
      not impressed.
    * Peppered - Peppery overtones are spicy but lack the fruity 
      character of freshly ground black pepper. Thankfully, the 
      pepper dominates the obnoxious "bottled smoke" flavor, 
      making this variety of Bacon Salt somewhat better than 
      "Original."
    * Hickory - An authentic but quite mild hickory smoke flavor 
      combined with a dose of sweetness in the salt. Of all three 
      varieties, I find this one to taste the least like an old 
      ashtray and most like bacon (which is to say, "Still not 
      really like bacon at all.")

For the most part, Bacon Salt is a middle-of-the-road smoke-
flavored seasoning salt. The makers achieve the illusion of bacon 
flavor through the heavy use of natural and artificial smoke 
flavorings along with other ingredients such as whey, garlic 
powder, and glutamates (not necessarily in MSG, but in hydrolyzed 
proteins.) I believe it owes its success primarily due to the 
current popularity of the internet bacon meme and not because 
the product itself is of particularly high quality.

In my own kitchen, Bacon Salt is going to find rather limited use. 
I use my smoker quite a bit, and I enjoy the flavors and 
characteristics that real, burning-wood smoke gives to food, but 
I really dislike the nasty bong-water taste of Liquid Smoke and 
other shake-it-out-of-a-bottle "smoke" products. Bacon Salt does 
not taste like "bacon" to me, it just tastes like artificially-
flavored salt, because the flavor of well-crafted bacon is more 
than just salt and smoke and lactose and garlic powder. It's an 
amusing curiosity, useful in a limited way when I want a kind of 
smoky flavor in something without firing up the grill, but when 
these bottles are finally used up I doubt I'll be buying them 
again.

Still, I can understand the appeal of a seasoning that promises 
to make "everything taste like bacon" and while I don't think the 
promise was intentionally broken, I think it is just too big a 
pledge to be successfully delivered.



---
http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/ - Dave's Cupboard - Food and 
Restaurant Reviews; If I post it here in NCE, you'll find it 
blogged with photos at Dave's Cupboard.

http://bacon-labels.blogspot.com/ - A gallery of bacon package labels.
(The extra shelf in Dave's Cupboard.
 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)