KuneKune Smoked Jowl Bacon from Raising ’em Right Homestead, Hastings, Michigan
At Valor Provisions, we partner with American farms that can show you exactly how the animal was raised. Raising ’em Right Homestead in Hastings, Michigan is a first-generation family farm raising purebred KuneKune pigs on 30 acres of rolling pasture. This is their Smoked Jowl Bacon: the cheek of a slow-grown, grass-grazing heritage pig, cured and smoked like bacon, and richer than any belly bacon you have had.
What Jowl Bacon Is, and Why KuneKune Jowl Is the Best Kind
Jowl bacon is cured and smoked pork cheek. It is the cut Italians turn into guanciale and the South has fried next to eggs for two hundred years, and it is the most flavorful bacon on the pig: more marbling, a softer fat, a deeper pork taste. On a KuneKune that is doubled. The breed is known for its fat, silky and faintly sweet, and the Rausers keep it that way with a daily fermented ration of non-GMO barley, wheat, oats, alfalfa and beets, with no corn, on pigs that take roughly two years on pasture to reach weight. Fry it as a bacon, or treat it as a seasoning: a few strips rendered into a pot of beans, greens or carbonara does what no belly bacon can.
Why You’ll Love It
Heritage KuneKune Pork – KPPA certified purebred herd, every pig with its own pedigree.
Pasture Raised and Rotationally Grazed – 30 acres of Michigan hills, managed to rebuild the soil, not strip it.
Non-GMO, Corn-Free Ration – Fermented barley, wheat, oats, alfalfa and beets.
Richer Than Belly Bacon – More marbling, softer fat, deeper flavor; the cut chefs ask for by name.
Family Raised – Josh and Jessica Rauser and their four kids, first-generation farmers since 2020.
How to Cook It
Jowl carries more fat than belly bacon, so go low and slow. Start strips in a cold skillet over medium-low heat and let the fat render until the lean turns deep mahogany and the edges crisp, 8 to 12 minutes. Or cube it and render it as the base for beans, collards, pasta or a pot of greens. Save the fat; it is liquid gold for eggs and cornbread. Always cook thoroughly before serving. Approximately 0.8 lb per pack.
The Raising ’em Right Story
Josh and Jessica Rauser were city kids. In 2020 they moved their growing family out of Minneapolis and started over on seven wooded acres in central Michigan with a garden, a couple of goats and a few KuneKune pigs. They outgrew it fast and settled on 30 acres in Hastings, where they now run one of a small number of KPPA certified, AKKPS registered KuneKune farms in the country. They opened a store on the property so more than 30 neighboring families could sell what they grow and make. Every pack keeps a Michigan family farm, and the community around it, in business. That is the Valor mission on a plate.
