Did you know that the bacon rasher was invented by a Waterford butcher in 1820?

Henry Denny, a shoemaker's son from Waterford, invented the bacon strip in 1820 and never looked back.
Bacon

Talk about bringing home the bacon! Well, Henry Denny did just that by inventing one of the most essential ingredients for any full Irish breakfast right here in Waterford.

Denny perfected radically new bacon-curing techniques at their meat processing plant which went on to become the largest bacon curing plant in Europe at one point. There were about 1,000 pigs processed on a weekly basis at the plant, which was pretty awesome.

What Denny did differently

Denny patented several bacon-curing techniques and innovated how bacon was cured forever. Before that, bacon was cured by soaking chunks of meat in brine. Denny decided to use long flat pieces of meat instead of chunks and opted for dry salt instead.

Shortly after they were confident of their process, and knowing that their way of curing the meat led to better quality and longer shelf-life of their product, they were able to export to Europe, the Americas and even India.

Pretty amazing stuff – so next time you order a full breakfast, pay hommage to Mr. Denny himself for giving us a little piece of salty, fatty greatness.

FYI, this article was written by a vegetarian!

No Bacon2
Share this post
From the blog

You might also like

Summer in the City celebrates with Waterford Freewheelers Festival and there's a host of DJ’s, bands and activities to celebrate...
As we gear up for the Thomas Francis Meagher Tricolour Celebrations at the beginning of March, here’s a bit of...