I used to hate bacon, mainly because the only ones I had tried were severely overcooked slices in a restaurant breakfast buffet, and we never had bacon at home. One day I decided to try them for myself, and cooked them in the oven. It was an eye-opening experience.
If the aroma of frying bacon alone doesn’t send you into spasms of ecstasy, you’re just not getting it. The actual eating of bacon is a religious experience. Arf!
If you can find a good dry cured bacon that hasn’t been bastardised by an injection of brine (to speed up the curing) so stays firm and doesn’t shrink to about 1/2 its original size during cooking then you have a little piece of piggy heaven. Mass market limpid salty watery meat is the same in name only and belongs in the bin (Yes, Danish bacon, I’m looking at you). The cooking smell is distressingly similar for both though.
This is very insightful.
Looks like this weekend is going to involve Bacon, Eggs and Hash Browns for Clan Cheesesteak.
I think what’s supposed to be appealing is that:
- It’s strips of meat, laden with
- Salt
- And fat.
If it were also sweet, it would hit all the major scarce-food-craving-triggers, thus the popularity of things like dipping bacon in syrup.
On the one hand, I’m totally with the people who think that bacon is this generation’s Chuck Norris (bacon doesn’t sleep: it waits), only not as funny but more delicious.
On the other hand, there really is a big difference between restaurant bacon and good home-cooked bacon. It’s an area where we tend to splurge, buying Applegate Farm’s Sunday bacon for most of our bacon needs, and then cooking it crispy, just this side of burnt. I rarely eat bacon in restaurants, because it tends to be soggy, half-raw, flavored mostly of chemicals. Totally different from good bacon.
About once every week or two I’ll make sandwiches for dinner. My wife and I get spicy turkey clubs: lots of vegetables, Sriracha mayonnaise, turkey, and a few strips of bacon. The bacon adds a lot to the texture as well as to the flavor, and it’s essential to the sandwich. My toddler get the same thing, only no bacon or Sriracha–unless she’s very, very lucky, in which case I’ll make up a grilled cheese sandwich in the bacon grease. The kid is borderline underweight, and I can think of no better way to fix that :).
Nasty bacon may have its place, but its place isn’t in my mouth. Good bacon is a wonderful part of our routine.
It doesn’t.
I don’t.
It isn’t.
I’m not kidding here. I don’t understand the appeal of bacon. No, I haven’t had it prepared in all the ways it is possible to do so but, with some prodding, I’ve eaten a number of brands, cooked soft, hard, crispy, extra crispy, in a sandwich, crumbled over a dish, and baked within a dish. I think it’s vile, and throws off the flavor and aroma of anything it is added to.
I understand that people like bacon, and I’m willing to admit that the issue is probably with me and not the bacon. I’m just not getting the seeming universal, over-the-top adoration of a product that is, at its core, really not good for you.
I like bacon just fine, but I likewise do not comprehend the Cult of Bacon.
Not every food tastes good to every person, and I don’t see why some people have problems with that (like when I say I hate seafood people look at me like I just announced I like to kick puppies into vats of fuming sulfuric acid)
I was just having fun above. I can certainly understand not liking something that is popular because it just doesn’t work for you. I can’t abide sashimi, but it is beloved by everyone else in my family. It’s not like I wasn’t raised around it - I was and yet never have been able to get it too work for me. The combination of flavor and texture of raw and semi-cooked fish of various types is just generally a fail for me.
I’m not even really a big fan of salmon and really dislike cooked oily fish like bonita or mackerel. I only really enjoy cooked-through firm-fleshed, “white” fishes like halibut and lingcod.
But surely there is something thoroughly bad for you that you love? Chocolate mousse? Fettuchine Alfredo? Dishes like that really have only negligible nutritional value and quite a bit of concentrated unhealthiness. Their only serious reason for being is flavor.
I love me some pork and ham. But I believe that bacon is by far the most overrated cut of the pig. Now I won’t turn it down, but I don’t think it is worth the add-on price for a sandwich etc.
I’m surprised no-one has mentioned the Bacon Sundae they had at Denny’s a few months back, and whether they had tried it.
I did. I don’t think I’ll be trying it again if they bring it back.
Actually, the essential quality of bacon that makes it super appetizing and appealing to me is the smoke. I love all things smoked… smoked fish, smoked meats, smoked cheese, smoked peppers and other veggies. Of course the salt and fat is important, but that needs to be rendered and the final bacon must be smoky and caramelized, but it’s the smoke that makes it. Guess that’s why I can take or leave pork belly in most other preparations… Pork belly for a Jigg’s dinner?.. blech, like pork jello.
I’d try it if it used hot fudge instead of maple syrup… can’t stand bacon and maple syrup.
http://www.macheesmo.com/2011/04/bacon-bourbon/
Bacon bourbon. I mean, what the fuck?
Also, don’t forget the importance of the curing process in the flavor. I’d say it’s that as much as the smoke that gives bacon its distinctive flavor. Fried up pancetta (which is basically an unsmoked bacon) tastes pretty damned good, too.
I love a good gyro. I really love a good gyro. I’ve never once said “Damn, I wish I had some gyro-flavored ice cream and a gyro t-shirt and some gyro magnets and a gyro bumper sticker and gyro-scented cologne and gyro soap and…”
Edit: Full disclosure; the joint I used to get lunch at as a teen had this poster in the window and I’d kill to get a copy of it.
Ditto. It’s too much trouble, really. I put it in a BLT sammich, but that means two slices of bacon, a LOT of lettuce, and 2 big slices of tomato. I also do like maple bacon, but if I never ate bacon again, I’d be fine.
And you want a good, thick, juicy…? What?
Heh. I just knew what poster you were going to link to. 
The factory district just west of my house contains the Kronos plant. Hmm…I wonder if they have any extra posters.
I think bacon is fine, and I certainly enjoy its presence in some dishes, but I definitely agree that there’s been a strange and vaguely annoying propensity to fetishize bacon over the past few years.
And that includes the freakshow regarding bacon salt on this very message board 
Weird! When I was a teenager, a place in Chapel Hill had this poster up–except that the caption on it said, “It’s ALL Greek to me!” which my girlfriend and I thought was hilarious.
Only moderately weird, but that covers all posters to this board.
I’ll eat your share.
Especially if it’s thick and I can BBQ it …
then make BLTs with totally ripe tomatoes, lettuce, and Ciabatta bread Om Nom Nom!
Best use of bacon EVER!