Saturday, October 30, 2010

Shopping

Coming home Saturday night I was delighted to see that "The Co-Operative" grocery store nearest my house was still open. I went in to buy some things for next morning's breakfast.


There were two choices for bacon: one claiming Britain as its origin, and another from "the family farms of the Netherlands". At this point I must confess that my first reaction was "Eek! Why would I want Dutch bacon? I'm in England! The British bacon is for me." It seems I have begun to adopt a British point of view after only a few short weeks. That is until I looked more closely at the package and read that it consisted of "87% pork."

I was perplexed. How in he world can 13% of a slice of bacon consist of something other than pork? Some minutes passed, during which time I surveyed the contents of the package. Perhaps closer inspection would reveal a portion of the of the slice where some miscreant had inserted turkey or beef. At least that would be a reasonable explanation. Alas, I found no signs of obvious adulteration.

Unsettled, I chose the Dutch variety.

Scene from a small boat punting up the Cam (the river in Cambridge).

2 comments:

Rob said...

Perhaps the other 13% was water or something?

Unknown said...

Generally that 13% is water and salt. Better quality bacon will have less water, because it's mainly used to make it look bigger.