Mangalitsa Jowl Bacon

People love the Mangalitsa jowl bacon. Here's something I found on the web today. Unfortunately, the author, Michael Barthel uses a picture of Barnaby Dorfman's homemade bacon (belly), not the jowl. Above, I've got a photo of some jowl bacon. As Michael Barthel explains (emphasis mine):

How did it taste? Well, perhaps I can best describe it with a side-by-side comparison. I cooked a couple pieces of regular store-bought along with the jowl bacon and consumed each in turn. The store bacon was good; it's bacon, after all. But the first bite of jowl bacon knocked me back with an almost narcotic feeling. The fat came out clean and soft but intense, concentrated bacon flavor encased within a slight base of regular porkiness. It's incredible, like the abstract ideal of bacon come to life, bacon like exactly what you want bacon to be.

Michael Barthel's and Bob del Grosso's recent statements about the awesomeness of Mangalitsa jowl make me feel a bit better about my previous statements about Michael Ruhlman's BLT challenge.

Like narcotics, once you start eating that Mangalitsa jowl bacon, you don't want to go back to "store bacon" - because it doesn't give you that same feeling.

You can order the same jowl bacon that Michael Barthel likes so much from Foods In Season. Call Foods in Season at 866-767-2464 and say you want to order a bunch of bacon by Wooly Pigs.

The more bacon you order, the cheaper it will be, because whether you FedEx one pound or ten pounds, the cost of shipping is essentially the same. Ordering 10 pounds is a lot more efficient than getting one or two 12oz packs.