What makes everything better? Bacon!
What makes everything better? Bacon!
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Find episode transcript here: https://the-best-thing-i-ever-ate.simplecast.com/episodes/with-bacon-ft-guy-fieri-ted-allen-and-adam-gertler
[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: People ask me all the time.
SPEAKER 2: Where do you like to eat?
SPEAKER 3: What's your favorite food?
SPEAKER 4: What's the best thing you've ever eaten?
SPEAKER 1: That's why we're here now.
SPEAKER 2: Not only to tell you what we love to eat.
SPEAKER 3: But where you can go get it.
SPEAKER 5: Whether they'll admit it or not everybody loves bacon. There's nothing like them.
SPEAKER 6: Bacon chunk a Patty.
SPEAKER 7: There's bacon all over this chocolate. Incredible.
SPEAKER 8: The best burger.
SPEAKER 9: Excuse me.
SPEAKER 10: I have ever had.
SPEAKER 1: It puts the shamalama in ding dong.
SPEAKER 12: I think in this whole show of bacon this is kind of like [WHISTLING]. Here's the bacon moment. Don't know what the whistle part was about. Don't have any clue. But I'm excited.
SPEAKER 1: Talking about a burger at Hodad's in San Diego. And we're talking about a fantastic burger. We're not just a burger. We're talking about a bacon burger. It puts the shamalama in ding dong. I mean, it is legit. Why is the bacon so good on this? One, is a lot. Two, crunchy salty. Three, a lot. So it's a lot crunchy salty and a lot. Not just bacon. Not just a couple of lane strips draped over the top of something barely participating in this activity of burgerliciousness we're talking about bacon chunk a patty.
SPEAKER 13: Well, hi there. Most places put a little couple strips of bacon on there. But we like to make a bacon patty.
SPEAKER 1: He takes the bacon-- this is the weird part-- and he boils the bacon.
SPEAKER 13: And we cook it, and cook it, and cook it for about two hours.
SPEAKER 1: It renders down the fat. Then he puts the bacon on the grill.
SPEAKER 13: The end result is going to look almost like hash Browns. Oh, perfect. Oh my gosh. You're not here for your health. You're here for a big greasy sloppy run down your arm hamburger. We start with mayonnaise.
SPEAKER 1: Oh, you have the burger on there too. Get out of here. When the dude that owns the joint has a burger that big on the back of his calf you better have a super legit burger. And you better really bring the bacon. The dude brings the bacon. It's the bacon in particular that makes the burger so outstanding.
SPEAKER 3: Look at that. Look at that. Oh, he's a natural. He's been eating his whole life. I can tell by looking at him.
SPEAKER 1: That's out of bounds, man. Look at that.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah, pretty legit.
SPEAKER 1: Guy's not the only guy who can talk about cheeseburgers. I too would like to speak about a bacon cheeseburger. Sure, you might expect to find one at a diner, or a drive-thru, or drive in, but I'm talking about a burger at a gastropub. Talking about Father's Office in Los Angeles, California. The best burger I have ever had.
It's a controversial burger. If you're a burger purist, this might not be the right burger for you. The Office Burger at Father's Office only comes one way. There's no messing with this burger. There's no hold the, pickles hold the lettuce, no ketchup.
SPEAKER 2: Yeah, we actually don't even serve ketchup or mustard-- contraband here.
SPEAKER 1: Basically, the chef has said, I've come up with my version of the perfect burger and that's it. This is the juiciest burger you've ever bitten into. Looking for a round sesame seed burger bun, you're not going to find it here. Excuse me--
[CHATTER]
SPEAKER 1: You bite the burger, and you're like, what is this smoky, delicious flavor? And it's bacon in there, but that bacon is taking no credit. There's no strips of bacon on top of the burger. The Patty is on the lower half of the bun. On top of that, you have the mixture of Gruyere cheese and blue cheese. And then on top is this really, really sweet bacon onion compote. It's kind of like a bacon marmalade. The bacon marmalade is really the secret here. That's where the harmony happens.
SPEAKER 2: I can't divulge too much. There are onions in there, some dry cured bacon. I think I've said enough.
SPEAKER 1: The dry aged beef is a real treat.
SPEAKER 2: Dry age beef is considered the best beef and it's typically served in the best steakhouses in this country. We like to use that in our burger. People wonder why it tastes so good. Well, that's the reason.
SPEAKER 1: This is a cheffed-out Burger. I mean, this is just supremely delicious.
SPEAKER 3: Bacon is good on everything, but then there is this dish that you would never expect to be made with bacon. That's the Angry Mussels at JCT's Kitchen in Atlanta, Georgia. Ever thought to that? They knew what they were doing. Let's head over to talk. What's special about JCT Kitchen muscles is the fact that they are cooked with bacon. So the height of the flavor just went up out of the roof. Big slice slab bacon, skin on, peppered, fried down, and in this bowl of mussels along with the juice, and the bread, and the peppers.
SPEAKER 2: Lots of butter, lots of bacon is a secret ingredient to how we make our Angry Muscles.
SPEAKER 3: In Atlanta, Georgia most things that you eat have bacon or pork in them. They don't have no problem with bacon.
SPEAKER 2: We cure and we smoke our own bacon for this item. Muscles are called Angry because we're throwing them to a super hot pan. Now, they're angrier because we're throwing a little Serrano Chile to fire them up a little bit. A lot of butter.
SPEAKER 3: Mussels cook very quickly. You just looking for them to pop open, you're ready. So you want that bacon to cook down and the flavor of the bacon to get in the juice, and the butter, and the onion. This is how you got this crusty toasted bread. You want to go down in that juice and just sop it up. And it's got all that flavor. So good, so good.
SPEAKER 1: Pork is the Holy Grail of ingredients, either cooked by itself or wrapped around something or stuffed in something. But for me, I want to go straight to the core of the story. I want to go to the pig itself. That's got to be Boccalone Salumeria at the Ferry Terminal Building in San Francisco, California. Chris Cosentino without a doubt is leading the charge of the salumi revolution on the West Coast. The guy's a genius with salty, tasty pig parts. Buena coppa, homemade, sweet, delicious, chewy. That was fantastic. I have some good pig. So when you walk by Boccalone Salumeria, the aroma of beautiful, cured meats just stop you in your tracks. If you're a salumi freak like me, it's definitely a place you've got to go check out.
CHRIS COSENTINO: One of the things we do here is we produce a salumi cone. So it's kind of like an ice cream cone, but instead of ice cream, it's full of meat. All the meats in this store fall under the salumi, which is the all encompassing term for cooked and cured meats.
SPEAKER 1: And you can pick your own three different slices. So it could be fabulous prosciutto, a really good coppa, and great pancetta. Pancetta itself is unsmoked pork belly, which is basically bacon. It's a great way to taste a master at work.
CHRIS COSENTINO: The actual term Boccalone means big mouth, which is me.
SPEAKER 1: He's never met a pig he couldn't cure.
CHRIS COSENTINO: The curing process takes anywhere between 65 to 90 days. Coppacolo, deboned pig's head, and we have a couple of prosciutto hanging here as well. We get a whole pig, and we break it down, and use it all the way through. Everything here is pig. If you don't eat pig, you can't eat here.
SPEAKER 1: This guy is a real artist. They take the cured meats right off the cooler, and slice it right in front of you. I mean look at some of the stuff. That's gorgeous it almost looks like a stained glass window. It's truly some of the best I've ever tasted my entire life. The flavor is fantastic.
SPEAKER 2: I'm really glad Tyler has been talking about my swimming cone. It's now my turn to talk about the best thing I ever ate. I work with pig every day-- lots and lots of pig. Wake up and shower with a pig every single day. I eat a lot of pig. And you would figure out for a certain point, you'll get tired. Never get tired of it. Everybody thinks about bacon, when they get up for breakfast. For me bacon, apple, maple glazed donut, perfect breakfast. Dynamo Donuts in San Francisco, my hometown, can't beat it. It comes together in one single bite. Maple and bacon, sweet and salty. That's what the best part about this, though. Dynamo Donuts, it's very different than any other donut shop. Hey, how are you? There's not a giant case of donuts. I mean, do you really need 900 donuts in a case?
SPEAKER 3: All the dough rolls by hand and kept my hand. Beautiful. One at a time. People don't actually make donuts from scratch that often. Hello, donut. I'm going to add the sauteed bacon. The bacon itself makes it really special.
SPEAKER 2: The sneaky part is apple.
SPEAKER 3: I saute the apples in the bacon fat as well, which gives them a really nice flavor. We're going to add the sauteed bacon. And then we're going to add the sauteed apples as well.
SPEAKER 2: So you got bacon and apples cooked and put in the dough.
SPEAKER 3: So light and fluffy. So they're ready to fry now. Donuts like to be fried in shortening because of the crispy exterior.
SPEAKER 2: The best donut. You can't beat it, I guarantee. The thing I don't like about them is I don't have one right now.
SPEAKER 4: Whether they'll admit it or not, everybody loves bacon, even vegetarians. Vegans, they want bacon. I love bacon. For me the best use of bacon I can think of is a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. I've never had a better one than the one from Choice Market in Brooklyn. I can't think of a sandwich I'd rather have. Choice Market is run by French people. Now, the BLT is not a specifically French dish. But when Boris at Choice Market makes his BLT, he takes a familiar sandwich to a whole different place.
SPEAKER 5: Maybe it is different because the balance of the ingredients.
SPEAKER 4: A lot of Americans distrust the French, which is a mistake because the French are more passionate about food than anybody. There's always a crowd at Choice. Are you in line? Could I have a BLT, please? BLT has to be just the right ratio of tomato to bacon to lettuce to mayonnaise. Let's talk about sandwich architecture for just a second, shall we? Something that drives me crazy about a sandwich is if you bite into a sandwich and all the stuff gushes out, I hate that. You've got to lay a great foundation. It's like building a building. That's what the bread is. It's the size that you can actually bite into. It's the chef's job to build the sandwich. You start at the bottom and you work your way up. In a BLT, you get crispy, salty bacon.
SPEAKER 5: We bake it in the oven at 325 for like 20, 25 minutes.
SPEAKER 4: There's actually an art to cooking bacon. And the way you do that is to cook it gradually. And then the bread gives it also more crunch.
SPEAKER 5: But I toasted together because I want to keep the inside moist. Rosemary mayonnaise, [INAUDIBLE]. Don't be scared.
SPEAKER 4: You can't have a BLT without mayonnaise. Anybody who does that is crazy and wrong. And there ought to be a law. Boris instinctively seem to grasp this so he makes his own homemade mayonnaise with rosemary in it.
SPEAKER 5: So you add like we do in a family and friends. I think my first mayonnaise, I was like 10 years old. And you have to try it. Perfect.
SPEAKER 4: The lettuce gives you a sweetness and a freshness and a crispiness, and like a green grassy note. The tomato gives you that bright, acidic flavor. I'm talking about a BLT like a fine wine.
SPEAKER 6: I'm one of those people that if I see flatbread cracker lavash pizza on a menu, I've got to get it. But wait, this show isn't about flatbread or pizza, or crackers. It's about bacon. What I do in San Francisco is go over to Nopa, where they have flatbreads, my favorite of which has grilled spring onions, garlic confit, a little bit of cream, and house-smoked bacon. So the flatbread changes with the seasons. This one in particular I remember. Check that out with a fresh green. The bacon, I know. Oh, the cream. It's like punch of fatty, sweet, salty, smoky, quirkiness all in one little bite. I wish my mom, in fact, this was my lunchbox when I was a little kid. They actually house smoke the bacon there.
SPEAKER 7: We cure them with salt and sugar, and a couple of different spices. And then for about four hours, we smoke on top of almond wood, on top of this big piece of machinery. We call her Peggy Sue.
SPEAKER 6: It's not that like overly smoked, oh, I'm chewing on part of the woodchips of the barbecue. It's perfectly smoked. Delicious.
SPEAKER 7: That one's for the gods. Cut them into little postage stamp pieces.
SPEAKER 6: Those little, almost rectangles of bacon pieces. Those are the ones that are good in a flatbread because then they have little bits that are singed, little bits that are kind of chewy, all in one little bite. Everything's really just thrown together in this perfect little orchestration of flavor. Garlic slow cooked in oil. How great is garlic confit?
SPEAKER 7: Don't skimp on the bacon. Let's get this guy in the oven. As it gets about 95% cooked, I'm going to add pana.
SPEAKER 6: The actual cream is really what finishes it.
SPEAKER 7: We take cream, garlic, onion, and chili flake, and we stew it down, and then puree the whole thing into a cream. That's going to take the place of any cheese on this pie.
SPEAKER 6: There's no cheese. There's no sauce. There's no cheese. That doesn't mean it's bad. Trust me on this one. It's really good. To have those textures of just the dough in itself, with the layers of all the other ingredients, that's genius.
SPEAKER 8: You cannot find a more perfect food. I love bacon. It's a celebration. It's a cele-bacon. I'm a little excited about bacon. You think bacon, bacon wrapped scallops, bacon for breakfast, Canadian bacon. But if you go to Animal in Los Angeles, there is a bacon crunch bar for dessert. Bacon for dessert. The bacon crunch bar almost makes me feel sinful. Nothing should be this decadent, but it is. You're going to have chocolate, and you're going to have dessert, you need a lot of milk.
SPEAKER 9: Bacon chocolate crunch bar.
SPEAKER 8: Awesome. You need to appreciate the amazingness of this dish. This is a statement. There's bacon all over this chocolate. It's not just weird for the sake of being weird. It's weird for the sake of being incredible.
SPEAKER 10: Basically, it's three layers of chocolate. Blowtorch. We just kissed the top. And then the top layers, bacon bits.
SPEAKER 8: Bacon is like the Bondo of the kitchen. You can use it anywhere.
SPEAKER 10: When you think the bacon is just about to burn, that's when you got to take it off. You're looking for the texture, and crispness, and saltiness of the bacon, without all the fat.
SPEAKER 8: It's when you order it, you get a slice. Here, chocolate mousse. Underneath here, chocolate ganache with roasted peanuts. This is hazelnut flavored chocolate kind of like Nutella. If you're like a scientist, you're going to eat this thing one layer at a time and sort of examine each one, that's not the way to eat this thing. You want to taste all those different chocolates. You want all those different textures. When all those layers are combined, it's just magic. The guys at the Animal use really good chocolate. Hazelnut paste, peanut butter. To eat this thing, and it's amazing how every layer has some kind of crunch element to it, soft element to it, salty element to it, and some kind of sweet element to it. Nothing should taste this good. It's incredible. You're eating bacon for dessert. May I have more. All right.
SPEAKER 11: Just when you think that you have seen and heard about the best, we bring you this show, and wipe it all out.