Spending Friday night in a cold south London smokehouse isn’t generally how I like to start my weekends. But here I am at the tiny London Smoke & Cure, ready to make some rashers at my first Makin’ Bacon class.
Tonight the emphasis is on curing, not smoking, and that starts with mixing a ‘cure’ from scratch. Salt, sugar and a tiny amount of sodium nitrate (toxic in high quantities, but needed to prevent botulism and to keep our bacon looking pink) are stirred together before we add ingredients to give our meat some oomph. Fragrant chopped bay leaves, crushed peppercorns and juniper berries are combined and massaged on to our back cuts. This salty cure is what’s going to turn our pork to bacon, drawing out moisture and intensifying its flavour.
A second cut, used to make streaky bacon, is taken from the pork belly. To a meaty wedge we add a sweet slick of maple syrup to candy it up.
Once both hunks of meat have been coated, a nifty vacuum pack machine seals up our supplies. Gratification is delayed: before we can eat it, there’s a week of massaging and turning our meat, followed by another seven days of it sitting in the fridge once we’ve washed off the cure.
Next up is a lesson in butchery. Confronted with giant slabs of pork belly (complete with a rogue nipple) we’re tasked with removing the ribs so the meat can be plunged into a bath of brine and made into rashers for the Crystal Palace Food Market. Making these meaty morsels is mostly a waiting game, so our tutor whips up some crispy bacon sarnies to give us a taste of what’s in store.
I may not be able to sample my own handiwork for a fortnight, but I’m still incredibly proud to be bringing home the bacon.