Like any honest Jewish boy, I cannot resist the sweet “soo-ee!” of the swine. All pork products cause my knees to wobble – no, not just because they make me so fat I can’t stand on my own two legs (although there is that potential), but because the pig, hog, boar, sow, or any other relative is the most delicious animal I know. If ever there was a strong argument that animals were put on Earth simply for people to enjoy, the pig makes it.
And I do love the pig indiscriminately. You can cook a pig on a spit, in the ground, on a barbecue, in the oven, in a crock pot. You can braise it, roast it, barbecue it, slow cook it, fry it, bake it. Anyway you do it, its a beautiful thing. I am happy to enjoy any part of him, weather it be his fatback (literally, the fat from a pig’s back, usually with the skin), his face, or his ribs, I eat them all. However, nobody can deny that there is one special part of the pig that makes anyone’s mouth water simply at its mention; Bacon. The food that is known to break vegetarians, cause vegans to chase after defenseless porkers with cleavers in their hands, and, yes, create “Reformed Judaism” (code for Jews that don’t keep kosher).
Bacon is the real breakfast of champions (it is also the lunch of lovers, and the dinner of dynamos – really, the saying should go, “winner, winner, bacon dinner!”). Bacon is so good, in fact, that one glorious week during my senior year of college I ate bacon at every single meal. It was Christmas Break and I decided to visit some friends in New York City. We were all poor college kids, so going out in NYC for every meal for a week was out of the question, and the cafeteria, thank god, was also not an option.
Columbia, their alma mater, had apartments for their upperclassmen with full kitchens, though, so cooking was an option. We were not the most well versed chefs at the time, but being able to cook bacon is a prerequisite for having testicles (well, at least the kind with hair on them). Much of that week is a haze to me, but the taste of bacon is still on my lips.
My love affair with bacon can be traced further back then that, though. Even when I was just a little guy I loved all things pork, calling it “the pink meat.” Of course, I didn’t know then how a small child with a love of the “pink meat” could be misconstrued, but I do attribute those days to future proclivities.
Over the past few years I’ve learned of new pork products. Pancetta and its glorious fatty drippings just perfect filling for gourmet macaroni-and-cheese; steamed (or baked) pork buns each a little present waiting to be unwrapped that will always delight; fatback flowing like manna from heaven; bacon grease is the nectar of the gods. It always comes back to bacon, though, and I feel like the rest of the world is finally catching on! There is even a bacon blog and I’ve already posted baconaisse.
I look forward to the future of bacon. I’m sure that the molecular gastronomists will have new and unusual surprises for us at regular intervals. Not to mention the greasy spoon owners that will keep building bigger and better sandwiches, and the mad scientists that won’t stop at the bacon explosion. I’ll be there every step of the way, clogging one artery at a time.
You may not think you have fallen under the spell of bacon, but ask yourself this question, when you hear the phrase, “bacon wrapped…” does it really need to go any further?
Pork: so good pigs eat it!
Josh…you’re fired from blogging!
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Lets disect this blog shall we. First I enjoyed your story of your youth, however you did forget to mention that also thanks to bacon you were truthfully never a small boy. Young perhaps but small was never uttered near your name. Next bacon, the meat multiplier, it can be added to anything inorder to make that meal better, even meat. And as the old joke goes,”what is the jewish dilemma? A free ham.” Breaking down religion and building up arterial plaque, I would have to agree that bacon is a wondermeat.
Josh – this site officially is starting to bite! Write something new!!!