The Queen of Wisconsin Bacon Returns To Ann Arbor
After a four-year absence, Camp Bacon returned in a one-night-only form
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Camp Bacon Returns In A New Form, Along With Tanya Nueske
If you love bacon, you probably know the Nueske’s brand. It’s a 90-year-old, family-owned company based in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, and the place where applewood smoked bacon was invented. Tanya Nueske is the fourth generation of her family involved in Nueske’s, which was founded by her grandfather, using her great-grandfather’s recipes from Germany.
Nueske’s has always been an instumental part of Camp Bacon, an annual festival put on by Zingerman’s. It began with a day-long seminar and it “grew and grew and grew,” says Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman’s co-founder. By 2019, it comprised an entire week of events, including a bacon fair at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market, a bacon ball, as in a dance, and featured many authors and brands.
I met Tanya at the Camp Bacon in 2013 and we’ve stayed in touch since. We spoke for Satisfaction Guaranteed, but I hadn’t seen her in person since before Covid. Last week, Zingerman’s Roadhouse held a special dinner called Mini Camp Bacon, in which nearly every course featured Nueske’s bacon (I have now eaten my quota of bacon for 2023).
A family business
The dinner was “one more piece of putting back the world” that existed before the pandemic, Ari said. And, it made perfect sense for Tanya to be the guest of honor, because Nueske’s was one of the first brands that Zingerman’s carried when it founded the original Deli in 1982.
Just as the pandemic challenged businesses the past few years, Tanya’s grandfather, R.C., Nueske, faced plenty of hurdles when Nueske’s started in 1933. He was the youngest of three brothers and two sisters, and he had to support his widowed mother and spinster sister. His two brothers’ farms provided him with plenty of pork, and he knew how to smoke it from his father, so the business was launched.
Along with the smoked meats, her great aunt Irma made homemade bread, grew vegetables, raised chickens, gathered eggs and gave them to her brother to sell along his routes. He drove a truck hand-painted with “Bob’s Fancy Meats” on either side. After her grandfather married her grandmother Marie, the couple decided to attach a meat plant to their home, via a breezeway. “They dug out the land with horses, and a neighbor helped them” construct the building, Tanya said.
Smoked From Birth
Bob delivered many of his smoked meats and other products in Northern Wisconsin, which was also where the family went in the summer. “That was where he really started making a name for himself,” Tanya said. When her parents married, they moved into the house with the attached meat plant, where Tanya grew up. “I call myself smoked since birth,” she joked.
Tanya spent a lot of time in the meat plant as a child, walking over to sit with her mother in her office, holding her birthday parties there. “It was every girl’s dream,” she says (and it would probably be some boys’ dream, too). Eventually, FDA requirements prompted the family to build a modern plant, still in Wittenberg, but much of the hand-crafted techniques continue.
Nueske’s was the first meat company to use wood from apple trees to smoke its bacon, which is where the applewood name comes from, and it has added cherrywood smoked bacon to its lineup. There are hams, pork chops and pork loins, sausages and pate, smoked chicken, duck and turkey, and smoked beef. Nueske’s became a favorite among chefs, who often list the brand name on their menus.
And, during the pandemic, business remained strong because Nueske’s could supply its patrons via its mail order business. It began offering bigger packages, like the five-pound supply above, and offered food industry customers pre-sliced versions of meats they previously bought in bulk, saving time for those who were short staffed.
My late godmother Maxine loved a BLT, and urged me to buy “the good bacon” on my grocery shopping trips. By that, she meant Nueske’s.
Some Good News From The Chicago Food Scene
Brown Sugar Bakery is famous in Chicago for its delectible caramel cake. Founded in 2020, owner Stephanie Hart has supplied places like Manny’s Deli, while customers have trekked to her bakery on East 75th Street for baked goods and chocolates. Now, Stephanie is expanding, according to Block Club Chicago.
She recently held the grand opening at a 10,000 square foot manufacturing facility in the Ashburn neighborhood on the South Side. She used a combination of state and local financing for minority-owned businesses to make the plant a reality.
Stephanie says she hopes to be an inspiration to others, just as Madame C.J. Walker, the legendary hair-care entrepreneur, was to her. “What I’m hoping to leave as a legacy is that a company can start as a retail, small, single, one-person shop and grow into a manufacturing company,” Hart said.
Meanwhile, Guide Michelin gave out this year’s stars and recognition, and Galit, owned by my friends Zach Engel and Andres Clavero, received a star for the second year.
Chicago also gained a second three-star restaurant, when Smyth, a tasting-menu spot, was bumped up from two stars.
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the Michelin awards. You should definitely check out this Substack post by
in his newsletter, The Hunger.Priced Out Of Reach, A Belfast Restaurant Closes
Deanes EIPIC, the flagship fine dining restaurant of a Northern Ireland collection started by chef Michael Deane in the 1990s, won its first Michelin star within a year of opening as Deanes in 1997.
Through the years, it has been a fine dining destination in Belfast, where it features a tasting menu at around $123 a person. That’s not necessary pricy by New York or London standards. But it now is out of reach for many diners in the north, according to CNN.
Deanes EIPIC will close at the end of 2023. Its owners will move outside Belfast and re-open as a more-affordable restaurant. Says executive chef Alex Greene, “People are willing to travel from the city or anywhere for good food and good accommodation. And the costs of doing it in the countryside are significantly lower than in the city.”
Deanes EIPIC joins a raft of high-profile restaurants who are eighty-sixing their lofty approaches. Copenhagen’s Noma, which has already been through a complete transformation, is closing again, and London’s Le Gavroche will shut in January, too.
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
I had a really busy week last week. In addition to moving houses in Ann Arbor, I wrote and made some media appearances.
I reviewed this season of the Great Canadian Baking Show for The Takeout (readers of Red Beans & Advice have gotten my weekly takes during the past couple of months).
I spoke with Wisconsin Public Radio’s Central Time about what comes next for the United Auto Workers, now that it has reached tentative agreements with each auto company.
I guest-hosted Lions, Towers and Shields, the classic film podcast, for our first-ever look at silent movies. Mine was The Shiek, starring Rudolph Valentino. We barely scratched the surface of the silent era, so we’ll hopefully have another Silent Sampler in the future.
Remember that next month, I’ll be teaching a Zoom class with the 92nd Street Y on the past, present and future of Electric Vehicles. I’d love to have you sign up.
Saturday was Veterans Day in the United States and today is Remembrance Sunday in the British Isles and Canada. Many members of my family have served in different branches of the armed forces, here in America and abroad. I appreciate all for their dedication.
I’ll be back tomorrow with Red Beans & Advice for our paid subscribers. For everyone else, have a wonderful week.