Apparently, the Poles love bacon as much as Southerners & Cajuns, as the shelves of The Polish Market in suburban Detroit (48902 Hayes Rd, Macomb, MI 48044-1953,586-532-9077) overflowed with bacon, bacon-flavored, and bacon-inspired products. I really wanted to try the spiced bacon roll (pressed bacon layered with sweet & hot paprika) or one of their EIGHT varieties of headcheese, but those items weren’t road-trip friendly, so I settled for Crik Crok crunchy bacon snacks. Imagine a salty snack food wafer impersonating bacon: decorated with stylish, streak-o-lean stripes, with a lingering smoky, greasy aftertaste.

Besides a thirty-foot-long deli counter brimming with sausages, The Polish Market offers a nice array of central European pastries, as well as an astonishing array of salted & smoked fishes. Fancy some pickled herring? Feel free to fish around in the cauldron to select the choicest morsel, located right next to a vat of pickles.

Stay tuned for more from Summer in the Heartland….