8. Curtis Sliced Bacon

This bacon was a bit of a surprise to me. I saw it in the grocery store, but had never heard of it! That alone had me surprised because I thought I knew ALL BACON! But anyway, it has a very simple and plain looking label that makes the logo “CURTIS” look more like a small town gas station logo. But definitely had to try it considering I never heard of it. This bacon makes its way down to Raleigh, NC from Greensboro, NC for a Nerd Bacon taste-test.

The color of the bacon is rich and it is uniformly sliced all the way through. This was very pleasing. Although being of the “regular” sliced variety, it seems to be a hair thicker than some other brands, like the Hormel or Smithfield’s “regular” cut. This may have aided in it shape-holding a little better.

When thrown onto the frying pan, it began to sizzle the way it should but it didn’t curl up TOO much. Some curling is only natural and expected, but some bacons take on the shape of a crazy-straw when they fry. This Curtis bacon stayed nice and flat, thus resulting in even distribution of crispiness. The texture is of the standard thin-sliced bacon variety: crispy in the middle and a little soft and chewy on the edges.

I noticed there wasn’t too much fat. In fact, the Wright Brand bacon gave off more fat with 2 strips than the Curtis did with 6! This isn’t a bad thing, however. There was more than enough fat to aid in cooking the bacon and keeping it from sticking to the pan. It was just slightly less than what I expected (as the bacon was almost 50% pinkish red and 50% white. The taste was exceptionally salty, much saltier than any other brand of bacon I’ve ever had. I love a salty-bacon as much as the next guy, but this bacon in particular takes the cake. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but a little more balance in other flavors is desired. The extreme saltiness sort of takes away from the other flavors. And this is not a smoked bacon, so the only real flavor one gets is, well, salty bacon. Which isn’t necessarily a negative thing.

Overall, Curtis Sliced Bacon was pretty good. I was very pleased with the uniform slices, great color, moderately low grease output, ease of frying, and the texture. I was a little down on the SLIGHT salt-forward flavor and wish that it was a little more balanced. But overall, I was very impressed and can only recommend this brand over the likes of Hormel or Smithfield’s as those surprisingly rank lowest on my list of the major bacon brands.

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