Artisan bacon goes the local route BACON

House Manager Anne Marie Vandendriessche reaches for a slab of bacon at Napa's Fatted Calf Charcuterie which is well-known for his cured bacon. Friday Jan. 8, 2010 House Manager Anne Marie Vandendriessche reaches for a slab of bacon at Napa's Fatted Calf Charcuterie which is well-known for his cured bacon. Friday Jan. 8, 2010 Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Artisan bacon goes the local route 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Yes, you can find bacon in doughnuts, pizza, ice cream - just about every dish on every Bay Area menu these days. And drinks too. But the real news of our collective bacon obsession is that it's produced a rasher of interesting new sustainable bacons made by local micro-producers from pigs raised on local pasture.

The makers include Fatted Calf, Black Pig, Marin Sun Farms, Highland Hills Farm, Clark Summit Farm, Prather Ranch (Range Brothers) and the Sonoma County Meat Buying Club. And given how easy bacon is to make, there are surely others.

They make up the new wave of a Bay Area artisan bacon trend that started with two West Marin men in the 1980s and '90s: the late Hobbs Shore of Hobbs Applewood Smoked Bacon fame and Bill Niman, whose Niman Ranch made bacon from pigs humanely raised in Iowa. Shore died late last year, but his business goes on under his daughter, using pork raised in Canada; Niman has left Niman Ranch and is ranching cattle and goats as BN Ranch in Bolinas.

The new bacons generally start with locally sourced pork. At $7.50 to more than $13 a pound, they're not cheap, and some are easier to get than others.

The local bacons all start with very good meat and follow the same basic curing/smoking routine, but that's where the similarities end. Some are sweet with brown sugar or maple, others lean toward salty; some are smoky, others not so much; some are thick and chewy, others almost delicate.

Some swear by traditional curing salt, which contains sodium nitrite to preserve the meat as well as its reddish color. Others use "natural" cures - either celery juice, which contains natural nitrate that converts to nitrite in processing, or a salt/honey/spice mix.

The bacon boom is reminiscent of California's leap into the production of extra virgin olive oil in the 1990s. In fact, in his new book, "Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon" (Zingerman's Press, 2009), Ari Weinzweig contends that bacon is the new olive oil, the ingredient that's transforming American cooking.

"The bacon most folks have had is little better than the commercial olive oil we were served for so long," says Weinzweig, co-founder of the renowned Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, Mich.

A prime example of the new Bay Area bacons comes from the Black Pig Meat Co. in Healdsburg. It's made by John Stewart, co-owner with his wife, Duskie Estes, of Bovolo in Healdsburg and Zazu in Santa Rosa.

Black Pig bacon hits a balance: It's meaty, salty, sweet and smoky, but not too much of any of them. The texture manages to be just a little chewy even when crisp.

Like a lot of Bay Area chefs, Stewart caught the salumi-making bug about five years ago, and bacon was where he started. "In the world of curing things, it's an easy one," says Stewart.

He moved on to making the more complex salamis and cured meats for sophisticated Bay Area palates. But, ironically, it's simple, all-American bacon - or, rather, its raging popularity - that lets Stewart keep producing the salumi he loves.

Stewart starts with good pork bellies, from Duroc hogs raised by Pure Country Pork, a certified-sustainable operation in Oregon.

He uses traditional curing salt, with sugar and black pepper to add flavor. For smoking, Stewart uses apple wood from the orchards around him in Sonoma County, preferring its softer smoke flavor to something like traditional Southern hickory.

He works in small batches for the bacon he uses at his restaurants. Like several of the other local producers, he uses Sonoma Direct, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved processing plant in Petaluma, for the meat he sells retail and wholesale.

Black Pig bacon has achieved minor celebrity status. Emeril Lagasse has featured it on his TV show, doing Zazu's recipes for bacon-wrapped figs and Tabasco-laced BLT. Stewart ships to New York and Los Angeles, to the kind of people who own wineries near Healdsburg or visit them.

Toponia Miller of Napa's Fatted Calf says that when she and Taylor Boetticher started their artisanal charcuterie business, they didn't include bacon. But about three years ago, they decided they could make a better bacon than what was on the market. And now, Miller says, she revels in all the high-quality bacon on the market - including their own.

"It's allowed people who denied themselves bacon to indulge again," she says.

Where to pig out The following are among the Bay Area producers of artisan bacon: Black Pig: $10 for 12 ounces, sold frozen at Bovolo, through the blackpigmeatco.com, at Della Fattoria bakery in Petaluma and gratefulpalate.com, a Fairfield bacon specialist. Made from Duroc hogs raised by Pure Country Pork, a certified-sustainable operation in Oregon. Cured with traditional curing salt (which contains sodium nitrite), sugar and black pepper; smoked over apple wood. Characteristics: thick-sliced and meaty with lots of salt, more smoky than sweet, beautifully balanced. Visible black pepper flakes on the edges. Chewy. Clark Summit Farm: $12 per pound. Sold frozen through the farm's CSA, which has a long waiting list. Try cozying up to a member - or, you can buy half a pig from the farm and send it for butchering and curing yourself. clarksummitfarm.com. Liz Cunninghame and Dan Bagley's pigs are a cross of heritage breeds like Gloucester Old Spot, Hampshire and Duroc, raised on pasture in the Marin hills near Tomales. Bud's Custom Meats does the curing, using traditional curing salt. Characteristics: This is the porkiest of all the bacons, with a good balance of salt and smoke. Fatted Calf: $11 per pound. Sold fresh at Fatted Calf's Oxbow Public Market store in Napa and the Saturday farmers' markets at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza and in Berkeley. Wholesaled to Dynamo Donut & Coffee of maple-bacon doughnut fame, Hog Island and a few others. fattedcalf.com. Made from pastured pork, most of it from heritage breeds raised in Missouri and Arkansas. Cured in brown sugar, cayenne and traditional curing salt; smoked over a mix of alder, apple and cherry wood. Characteristics: Thick cut, more salty than sweet, smoky. Highland Hills Farm: $12.99 per pound, sold frozen at Berkeley's Saturday and Tuesday farmers' markets - if you can get it. Recently, you have to put your name on a list to pick up your bacon the next week. Rancher Ted Fuller makes the bacon from pigs that are a cross of Tamworth, a heritage breed, and wild boar. It's the most singular of all the bacons, starting with its brownish color, a result of its cure, which uses salt, powdered honey, cinnamon and cloves. Characteristics: thick and wide slices, super-chewy even when crisp; the flavor is mainly meaty, not sweet, not smoky. Marin Sun Farms: $9.99 per pound, or $8.99 per pound for a 7- to 8-pound slab. Sold fresh at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market and at the farm's Point Reyes Station shop. marinsunfarms.com. Made from heritage crossbreeds, including Tamworth and Duroc, raised near Petaluma and on Riverdog Farm in the Capay Valley. Cured in curing salt and sugar; smoked over apple and hickory. Characteristics: thin sliced, easy to crisp and salty, with more smoke than sweet. Classic American. Prather Ranch (Range Brothers): $9 for 12 ounces. Sold frozen at the ranch's Ferry Building shop in San Francisco and at a number of farmers' markets, including those in Noe Valley (alternate Saturdays), San Rafael (Sunday), and Grand Lake (Saturday) and Temescal (Sunday) in Oakland. prmeatco.com. Prather Ranch raises its own Berkshire pigs on pasture in the Capay Valley and markets the bacon under the Range Brothers label. It's cured in salt and celery juice, which contains natural nitrate, instead of curing salt, and is processed in Minnesota. Characteristics: Maple syrup and apple wood smoke give this very porky bacon a sweet taste - and a tendency to scorch. Thick-cut slices are wide at one end, skinny at the other, with a golden edge. Sonoma County Meat Buying Club: $7.50 per pound, available to members of this meat CSA with five drop-off points, including one in San Francisco's Sunset District. links.sfgate.com/ZJCO. The bacon starts on Petaluma and Santa Rosa farms, including some pigs raised by members of Future Farmers of America. The cure is done without traditional curing salt, by Sonoma Direct, and smoking is over apple wood. Characteristics: mild-tasting, the least bacon-like, barely salty or smoky.

Bacon Fat Mayonnaise Makes about 2 cups Adapted from Ari Weinzweig's "Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon" (Zingerman's Press, 2009). The author says the recipe came from his editor, Jim Reische, and that it's good on, well, everything. Note that this will look different from traditional mayonnaise. 5 egg yolks

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

7 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 1/2 cups rendered bacon fat (saved from cooking bacon)

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

-- Freshly ground Tellicherry or other black pepper to taste Instructions: Chill all ingredients and utensils (including your mixing bowl) down to about 40°. Don't skip this step or the mayonnaise may break. Put the egg yolks, mustard and 1 1/2 teaspoons of the lemon juice into a blender or mixing bowl. Beat on high for 2 minutes, until well blended. Add in the bacon fat (no need to add gradually if everything's properly chilled), continuing to beat until the mixture is thick. Depending on how thick and rich you like your mayonnaise you may or may not need the entire amount of fat. Slowly blend in the remaining lemon juice, sea salt and pepper, whipping it pretty much continuously throughout. Adjust seasoning to taste. The mayonnaise keeps for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. Per teaspoon: 35 calories, 0 g protein, 0 g carbohydrate, 4 g fat (2 g saturated), 15 mg cholesterol, 35 mg sodium, 0 g fiber.