Cucumber Carbonara
Cooking with cucumbers may seem unusual, but the freshness of the cucumber pairs beautifully with smoky bacon and the richness of the carbonara sauce.
Nathan Gifford Brings Home The Bacon
....and he does not take it for granted
“Everything I have I owe to bacon……kinda….”
Nathan Gifford sells bacon. A lot of bacon. And he’s happy with that. He never thought he’d be doing much beyond being a line cook. It’s not hubris, it’s fact. “I was on a path to nowhere. I can’t believe how crazy lucky I am. My life has just completely changed because of bacon.”
It’s a black cement block behemoth that can smoke upwards of 10,000 pounds of bacon. We’re standing in front of Nathan Gifford’s smoke house in East Nashville, where we dropped in unannounced. Nevertheless, he took the time to give us the royal tour of “the bacon compound” his nickname for the outfit. Nathan has to be the most affable, humble chef in town. In fact, he states that “the best bacon we’ve probably ever made, my wife made. I was working 100 hours a week and so she made some.”
The Beginning
Like so many entrepreneurs who start small, Nathan Gifford began smoking bacon nine years ago in his Nashville garage. “My idea was, ‘I got my dog, I got my smoker, and I’m going to smoke bacon in my house to make some extra money.”
Nathan realized he loved meat at a young age. When he was seven, he received the subsidized breakfast at school and remembers the exact day he walked into the lunchroom .”There were mountains of sausage and eggs, and I thought oh man, I want to be around this every day.” At 15, he went to work at the local Sonic which was within walking distance of his house. “My mom had to sign a waiver so they would let me work there. When I found out I could hang out with my buddies and eat and cook, I thought, this is for me.” He quit school at 16, bought a Ford Econoline van, and drove to California. Until he was 23, he was an unsupervised kid washing dishes who moved up to the line. “I was a great dish washer. I was young I had no shortage of energy. They fed me and said, ‘don’t quit.’”
Once he moved to Austin, his talent at the grill really became apparent. He was living in East Texas hill country, where, with a high German population, sausage reigns. He learned how to make sausage from the best and became a great sausage maker.
When Nashville called, he went to work with Sean Brock at Husk. Then later for Capital Grille at the Hermitage Hotel. One day, friend and fellow chef Kristin Beringson (now of Henley) asked Nathan to smoke a pound of bacon for her restaurant. He obliged and she liked it -- a lot. “You should make more of this,” she suggested.
So, Nathan cured and smoked the most his home smoker could hold -- four pork bellies. Slicing each one by hand, he wrapped the bacon in butcher paper and peddled them to chefs around town. With such bacon for bait, it didn’t take long to get some bites. Belle Meade’s 360 Bistro was in immediately, ordering 20 pounds. Twenty turned into 80, and soon Nathan found himself smoking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The neighbors started to complain. They had a point. “It was a lot of smoke,” Nathan admits. “Even my ice cubes smelled like smoke.”
Nathan needed a proper space, so he reached out to Nick’s Barbeque in Bordeaux. “I rented a spot there,” he recalls, “and set my smoker out in the gravel lot. All weekend, I sat in my truck and hung out with the smoker.” When he got too big for Nick’s, Nathan found an old building (previously a transmission shop) in East Nashville that a friend had for rent. And Gifford's Bacon was born.
They moved in and constructed the first bacon making facility in Nashville. “In the smoke house, we smoke only with hickory wood. There’s no gas, no electricity, it’s totally old school. It doesn’t get more primitive than this.” They source all their pigs from small farms in the Midwest and specialize in smoked bacon, sausage and bologna.
In addition, they are the only USDA-approved butcher in Nashville with a USDA inspector on site, a requirement to provide meat to chefs. Because they primarily make bacon for restaurants and are now on menus, people started to notice. So much so that the facility was inundated with fans. People were coming from everywhere to see the operation. “One particular guy had eaten my bacon in Nashville while visiting. He went home and ordered 10 pounds (no small feat as shipping was expensive). Then he and his buddies drove from Illinois to meet me. I even sponsored their little league team. But It was intense, and started happening more and more, and folks got a bit too excited.” They closed and rethought their visitor policy and are now open to the public again.
The moral of Nathan’s story is not so much “rags to riches” but one of hard work, luck, and gratefulness. ”Young cooks come to me and ask for advice, and the best advice I can give is: you need to go through the fire. I was a cook for 27 years before I started the bacon company. I never had any money, I was always working above my ability, it was enthusiasm and willingness to do about anything. I was relentless. I had blinders on. I was so focused on being a cook. But, I’m one of them. That’s why I can sell bacon so well to anyone. I consider myself to be the luckiest guy in the world. I basically get paid to hang out with chefs and talk about bacon.”
When it comes to cooking, Nathan loves veggie-centric recipes (like this carbonara or this zucchini braciole) that use bacon as an accent piece. Which, come to think of it, sort of illustrates Nathan himself. He sees bacon like he sees himself: as an ingredient. He wants to be part of something, not center stage.
Gifford’s bacon Is available in all 50 states and used in restaurants predominantly in the south, but throughout the country. You can order bacon at giffordsbacon.com.
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