Vande Rose Farms Applewood Smoked Bacon (Dec 2007)

After a disappointing showing in November, the Bacon of the Month club redeemed itself with the latest selection, which apparently comes from a special breed of pig ("Duroc hogs").

We didn't have any tomatoes or lettuce, so we went with grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches the first night. (A couple nights later, we also made some BLTA's.)



The Vande Rose Farms was clearly more similar to the North Country Cob Smoked Bacon than the Tripp Country Bacon: thick slices producing great texture, and not too salty. However, I wasn't able to pick up too many distinctive flavors.

As everyone knows, value is always an important consideration for me (in this case, I'm also looking out for my friends who pitched in to buy this subscription), so I was a bit disappointed that this month, we only received 12 oz of bacon (compared to a full pound each of the previous two months). Furthermore, this bacon also shrunk considerably upon cooking (although not as much as the Tripp Country Bacon), so we didn't get much final product.

Overall, the Vande Rose Farms was impressive, but it still fell short of the North Country, which had a more interesting flavor, in addition to simply giving us more.

Bacon ranking:
1. North Country Cob Smoked Bacon (Oct 2007)
2. Vande Rose Farms Applewood Smoked Bacon (Dec 2007)
3. Tripp Country Bacon (Nov 2007)