Daniel wrote:
They no longer make Sizzlean, either! "Move over, Bacon!"
Yeah, don't remind me... Sizzlean was my all-time favorite breakfast food. I have never liked "real" bacon, and I find turkey bacon to be a dry, flavorless substitute for Sizzlean. There were two varieties, the original was roughly 30-40% pork and the rest turkey, this came in the white package. They later had a brown package that was a similar formulation, but had beef replacing pork, I believe the same proportions as the pork-turkey one.
Sizzlean always seemed to be distributed in a spotty way, even in the early 80's when it was relatively prevalent, many grocery chains didn't carry it, and it seemed to never be in any stores in some regions. By the 90's it was renamed "Sizzling" (I believe due to strengthened FDA standards for what kind of foods could claim they were "lean") and had become rather scarce, it was in fewer stores and fewer regions. Sometimes only certain locations of certain chains carried it. The Pork variety seemed to almost disappear by the late 90's though I found a bunch of them once in 2003 in LA (with current expiration dates.) ConAgra (eventual owner/inheritor from Swift-Ekrich) finally stopped making any Sizzlean in 2005.
Suffice it to say I went to great lengths in the 2000's to get my Sizzlean fix, and when the end was near I got several dozen from a distributor. I actually posted an ad to Craigslist in various cities trolling for leads on where to get Sizzlean. Someone pointed me to this distributor, and I got as many as I thought I could get and still be able to eat them before they became inedible. I still have 6-7 packages in my freezer, one or two lost vacuum seal and "died" but most survived and tasted fine. I will probably eat the last of them over the next few months, as they are already almost 3 years old. The carcinogenic "Nitrite" preservatives seem to do their job well. By now I am probably in possession of the last Sizzlean in existence! (unless there are a few stray packages forgotten in the back of some freezers out there...)
I suppose considering how processed and artificial they are, it is just as well that they are no more, but I will never enjoy my breakfasts quite the same again. The closest thing I have found to Sizzlean flavor-wise is Spam, but I am not looking forward to having to slice up cubes of "pork" each morning, rather than slap down presliced "bacon." This is all probably TMI, but I saw that I was not the only person here who remembered Sizzlean, and I wanted to share my story.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
