WET VERSUS DRY CURES

By now, you must have seen that high-falutin’

bacon that seems to be invading every farmers’
market and supermarket in the country (not to
mention online sources). Is it worth its premium
price? As far as flavor is concerned, that’s simply a
matter of personal preference. But there’s a far
more compelling reason to pick the fancy stuff over
the standard supermarket brands, and it’s in the
cure.
All bacon is cured—that is, treated with salt in
order to alter the structure of its proteins and
preserve it. Traditionally, the cure was a dry cure:
salt (often with other seasonings) was rubbed onto
slabs of pork belly. Over the course of a few weeks,
the salt worked its way into the belly at a leisurely
pace, while the meat slowly lost moisture. The result
was a dense hunk of deeply flavored belly with
relatively little residual moisture. Many high-end
bacons are now produced using this time-consuming
method.
Most supermarket bacons, on the other hand, are
cured with a wet cure: a saltwater solution is injected
into the meat in many spots. With this technique, the
salt can penetrate the meat much faster. What once
took weeks is accomplished in a matter of days. Of