Last week I posted about one of my hobbies: Kingdom of Loathing, and the radio show associated with it. On that radio show, one of the DJs mentioned repeatedly an amazing new product that they discovered: Bacon Salt. At first I thought "You mean the salt they use to cure bacon? What's so amazing about that? I mean do they recycle it or something? Cuz that'd be kinda grody." But NO! They were not talking about recycled pork seasonings. This is what they were talking about:
A couple years ago, a couple guys got into a conversation about how much they loved bacon. Then they started talking about how great it would be if everything tasted like bacon. So they set out with that goal in mind. The result: Bacon-Flavored salt. You can read more about it here: http://www.baconsalt.com.
This sounded like a fantastic idea, because I Love Bacon. But naturally I was skeptical. I mean, have you tasted Baco's? They...sorta taste like bacon might taste if bacon was in fact stale and slightly burnt tiny bread pieces. But I was assured of that authentic baconosity of Bacon Salt. Now, of course, I could have just ordered from some the site, but then I would have paid for shipping and then I would have waited for the shipment to come in. And what if it wasn't all that good and I spent all that money just to get the stuff here and it was no good?
So I set out to find some. And of course, I set out to do this when I got off work at 5:30pm. During Rush Hour. Now, if you look at the site, it shows a list of possible vendors, all of which are not local to my locale, or just don't exist anymore. But some of my coworkers pointed out that some of those had been bought out by, or were associated with other major supermarket chains. So, hopes up, I set off.
Long story short: it took an hour and a half and a handful of markets all over Marin, but I finally found my prize in Mollie Stones. I raced home, overjoyed to make everything in my house taste like bacon: pizza, tater tots, ramen, chili, Funyuns, the cat...well ok, I don't have a cat, but if this stuff worked as advertised I would seriously consider getting one on a very temporary basis. Anyway, I got home, fired up the oven, through the taters in there, grabbed a beer, and started writing this blog. About halfway through writing this, my dinner was ready. I sprinkled on an experimental dose of this potentially magical powder...and low and behold, my tots did, in fact, taste more bacony than before. Though I will admit that there was not the complete Tater-To-Bacon conversion that I was hoping for. I will have to experiment with the levels. And there are several different types out there that I have yet to try. Fortunately for science, I picked up a bottle of each, so I'll be able to explore the range of accuracy.
Anyway, if you have the means, I recommend picking some up. And it's vegetarian, so if you love the taste of bacon but not the moral dilemma behind eating it, give Bacon Salt a shot.
Happy Jenday!