THE BEST AND THE WORST

Twelve bacons were baked until just crispy and then tasted blind at The Blue Room restaurant in Cambridge, Mass. One of the 12 brands – Ham I Am's Ozark Trails Bacon – was judged so vastly superior that it was put in its own category and not listed below. The other 11 bacons are listed here in order of preference based on the scores awarded by our judges:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:

* Oscar Mayer Bacon (Oscar Mayer Foods Corp., Madison, Wisc.), $3.49 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphates, sodium erythorbate (made from sugar) and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Oscar Mayer is a relatively thick and irregular cut of bacon with "tender texture" and good "balance of fat and lean." Tasters liked the "nice pork flavor and the hint of smoke" along with the "balance of sweet and salt."

* John Morrell Hardwood Smoked Bacon (John Morrell & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio), $2.49 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Our close second-place finisher, Morrell is also "slightly thicker than most other bacon and shows better presentation," with a "rustic sort of look;" some felt it even looked "hand-cut." Morrell had "good overall flavors, with a sweet aroma," "sweet mapley taste" and "strong pork flavor."

RECOMMENDED:

* Hillshire Farm Country Smoked Brand Bacon (Hillshire Farm, Cincinnati, Ohio), $2.99 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Hillshire Farm has the highest fat-to-meat ratio of the high finishers but also has a "nice thick slice to it." It demonstrated a "good overall taste" with a "salty beginning followed by sweetness for balance." Hillshire Farm is one of the smokier of the contestants.

* Colonial Genuine Hickory Smoked Special Cut Bacon (Colonial Quality Meats, Boston, Mass.), $2.59 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Like the other top finishers, Colonial is a "thick-sliced cut, more like a ham than a bacon, with an irregular, but appealing shape." "A little lean" for most, Colonial had "strong pork flavor, and an otherwise straightforward taste."

* Plumrose Old Fashioned Hardwood Smoked Premium Bacon (Plumrose USA Inc., East Brunswick, N.J.), $2.49 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sodium phosphate, brown sugar, sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Plumrose is a "fatty and plump" bacon that also looks "hand-cut." It has an "almost perfect ratio of meat to fat" and was dubbed "very salty with a good hog underneath." Plumrose was admired mainly for its "nice texture" along with a "balance of sweetness even to its strong salt taste."

NOT RECOMMENDED:

* Jones Dairy Farm Hickory Smoked Sliced Bacon (Fort Atkinson, Wisc.), $2.99 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium ascorbate and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Jones Dairy Farm is a "very thin, straight bacon, with even strips of dark brown meat and yellowy fat." Jones had a "decent balance of flavors" with "no overwhelmingly bad tastes" but was generally deemed too "weak and thin to compete" with the other strong finishers.

* Smithfield by Luter Hickory Smoked Bacon (Smithfield Packing Co. Inc., Smithfield, Va.), $2.59 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite, then smoked. No sugar is added. As one might guess, then, Smithfield was judged "too salty" with "little sweetness or texture." Although appearing to have a "good fat-to-lean ratio," its flavor was thought to be "imitation-tasting" and "kind of dead."

* Armour Premium Bacon (Armour Foods Co., Downers Grove, Ill.), $2.99 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Armour is "very generic-looking bacon with even ribbons of meat and fat." Many tasters found the texture of Armour to be distracting, calling it "too rubbery" or "plasticky." Critics felt that it was "flat and uninteresting" or "high in fat with no smoke and sugar." One ventured, "No smoke, no salt, no sugar, no flavor, no way!"

* Hormel Black Label Center Cut Bacon (Hormel Foods Corp., Austin, Minn.), $2.59 for 16 ounces. Cured with water, salt, sugar, dextrose, sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite, then smoked. Although Hormel enjoys some fairly high respect inside the bacon industry, our panel was generally unimpressed. "Very high in fat," with "distracting yellow and red colors," Hormel proved "thin and uninspirational." The only outstanding flavor to Hormel was the high salt content, but with "little sweetness and no smoke to speak of."

* Edwards Country Style Hickory Smoked Virginia Bacon (S. Wallace Edwards and Sons Inc., Surry, Va.), $14.95 for a three-pound package. Cured with water, salt, sugar and sodium nitrite. You can purchase this bacon in slab form by mail – call (800) 222-4267 – or buy it sliced from specialty butcher shops. It was the only one of our bacons that comes in a slab, and was also the highest priced of all. Interestingly, it was also ranked as the second lowest. Described as "lacking color and texture" largely due to the extremely high fat content, and most felt it had only a "thin, salty flavor."

* The Pork Schop of Vermont Maple Sugar Cured Bacon (The Pork Schop of Vermont Inc., Hinesburg, Vt.), $3.99 for 12 ounces. Contains pork cured with water, sea salt and maple sugar, then smoked. This is the only one of our bacons that does not contain sodium nitrite or sulfites. It was also the most distinct-looking – other than Ham I Am – of all of the competitors. Pork Schop is "very meaty" bacon, which "seems uncured." ("There is no cure for this bacon," said one.) Most found its "gray color" and its "plasticky texture" disturbing. Pork Schop is not salty at all, with most of its flavors characterized as "sweet and porky."

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