Cooking Bacon

Ordering Bacon

I love bacon; who doesn’t? Even people who don’t eat it mostly like it. They just refrain (at least in public) for religious or political reasons. Ask carefully enough and you’ll discover they love the stuff. One of my very best friends in the world chooses not to eat bacon because he made a movie co-starring a pig (Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web) and he loves pigs so much he refuses to eat them. I can accept that. But I know in his heart he really likes bacon.

When you come to think of it, bacon doesn’t seem like pork. It doesn’t even seem to come from an animal or be meat at all. What’s going on here? How did bacon get a meat “pass”?

It doesn’t really look like meat- wrong shape, funny stripes, too thin. It doesn’t really cook like meat. What other meats do we microwave or fry? It doesn’t really taste like meat. It doesn’t really taste like anything else on earth (except turkey bacon). It inhabits its own food group. It’s awesome. If it were meat, why would we put in on top of other meat (burger), wrap it around meat (hotdog), or place it next to fowl (club sandwich)?

Who would mix any other meat with peanut butter, bananas, or oatmeal? (don’t make a face; it’s delicious).

Next time you order at a restaurant, pay attention to all the questions the server asks: how would like that burger cooked, would you like that salmon “medium”, would you like those eggs over easy, medium or hard? And, of course, how about that steak (down to the degree Fahrenheit)? They are so concerned for your happiness, they want it cooked the way you like it. That’s what you do with meat.

Ever been asked how you’d like that bacon cooked? No, I haven’t either. Ever. I always have to tell them. Why don’t they ask? It is meat, isn’t it?

Isn’t it?