Bacon mania refers to passionate

bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

enthusiasm in the United States and Canada. Novelty bacon dishes and other bacon-related items have been popularized rapidly via the internet. The movement has been traced to the late 1990s when high-protein foods became a more prominent diet focus due in part to the Atkins diet."'I'm a bacon fanatic,' he said. 'When I go out to breakfast, I order oatmeal with bacon on the side. Nothing tastes like bacon.'" Since then, bacon-focused events and gatherings celebrating the food have been reported and bacon-related exploits have been featured in media accounts.

Innovation

Newer bacon creations have joined more traditional foods like the BLT,

Cobb salad The Cobb salad is a main-dish American garden salad typically made with chopped salad greens (iceberg lettuce, watercress, endives and romaine lettuce), tomato, crisp bacon, fried chicken breast, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, chives, blue cheese, ...

, clams casino, and club sandwich. Dishes include hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise encased in bacon (the "heart attack snack")Gonzo Gastronomy: How the Food Industry Has Made Bacon a Weapon of Mass Destruction
by Arun Gupta, '' AlterNet'', October 9, 2010 and Wendy's 'Baconator' (six strips of bacon on a half-pound cheeseburger). The growing popularity of bacon has also encouraged product introductions such as bacon salt,

maple bacon donut The maple bacon donut also spelled doughnut is a breakfast or dessert food that has become popular in some areas of the United States and Canada. It is distinct from other donuts because of the prominent bacon and maple syrup–flavored glaze us ...

s, and baconnaise.

Bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

food oddities include the bacon explosion ("a barbecued meat brick composed of 2 pounds of bacon wrapped around 2 pounds of sausage"), chicken-fried bacon, bacon-infused vodka,

bacon ice cream Bacon ice cream (or bacon-and-egg ice cream) is an ice cream generally created by adding bacon to egg custard and freezing the mixture. The concept of bacon ice cream originated in a 1973 sketch on the British comedy series ''The Two Ronnies'' a ...

, bacon jerky and chocolate-covered bacon, all popularized over the internet. Bacon has been adapted into products including bacon bubble gum, bacon band-aids, sizzling-bacon-flavored rolling papers, and bacon air freshener. A bacon alarm clock that wakes people up with the smell of cooking bacon has been announced. A 2009 story in ''The Baltimore Sun'' describes bacon as being "more than bacon," and stated that for "obsessive and adoring Bacon Nation it's about cheap thrills and a chance for Internet fame.""Dan Taylor slathers Baconnaise on turkey sandwiches and has used it as a sauce to dunk steamed shrimp. The Lutherville foodie also makes a dip by crumbling bacon into warm cheese that he calls "life-altering". Phillip Kerrigan... recently tried bacon bread pudding, bacon peanut butter cups, bacon toffee and bacon rum. For a friend's birthday, he whipped up a batch of homemade bacon and egg ice cream. Here are just two proud soldiers of the burgeoning Bacon Nation, marching forward boldly and bravely, if somewhat greasily, striving to push the conventional limits of a once-ordinary breakfast meat." Calling it "like an extreme sport", the article described the innovators and enthusiasts celebrating bacon in all its incarnations.

Organization

The increased interest in bacon has led to Bacon-of-the-month clubs, bacon recipe contests, blogs, a dating app for bacon lovers, and even "bacon camps." Seattle hosted a "bacon camp" where bacon was included in an assortment of bacon dishes and other bacon-related items. Bacon has even been referred to as a fashion statement after a bacon bra was photographed. The '' Portland Monthly'' noted that "Bacon is such a quintessential breakfast staple, even vegetarians stake a claim to their own versions." A website called "Bacon Today" was started to provide updates about bacon related happenings. The ''

San Francisco Weekly ''SF Weekly'' was a free alternative weekly newspaper founded in the 1970s in San Francisco, California. It was distributed every Thursday, and was published by the San Francisco Print Media Company. The paper has won national journalism awards, ...

'' reported on the first "BaconCamp" held "in solidarity with the growing popularity of events (see the recent Grilled Cheese Invitational)" and reported that the event "demonstrated just how much of a high bacon is currently on in terms of notoriety and how far people are able to stretch one culinary theme".Tamara Palme
Saturday Gluttony: BaconCamp
March 23, 2009 The event included lectures on bacon as art, a PowerPoint presentation of the Obacon project (a recreation of the famous Obama Hope poster), as well as judging and awards. The slide show from the event includes a wide range of innovative food and decorative bacon entities. The ''San Francisco Weekly'' advised those attending to live, breathe, and smell like it and to bring a bacon dish.

Events

In and around

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...

, Maryland, bacon has featured at various eating and drinking establishments. There is a "clamoring" for the bacon happy hour at Bad Decisions bar in Fells Point which includes a menu that is completely redone with bacon dishes and big bowls of bacon served on the bar (using up to 30 pounds of bacon in a two-hour period). A cafe in Hampden offers the Bacon Bulleit, a cocktail of bourbon, lemon, and maple syrup, "with applewood smoked bacon replacing the swizzle stick." The " Bacon Takedown" competition in Brooklyn, New York, was held March 29, 2009 and featured 30 contestants vying for the best bacon dish. The winner was bourbon-bacon ice cream. The "Bacon Mania" ABC News segment covered the event and noted that $2 billion in bacon was sold in the United States in 2008 and that "with the bacon business booming... you might say our love affair with the breakfast meat is more passionate than ever".Bacon Mania
March 30, 2009, ABC News On February 28, 2009, the second annual

Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival The Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival is an annual festival in Des Moines, Iowa. Founded by members of the Iowa Bacon Board, the festival sold 200 tickets to the first festival in 2008. Today, the bacon celebration has grown to host approximately 14,00 ...

in Des Moines Iowa hosted a sell-out event for more than 300 people. First held March 1, 2008, on

National Pig Day National Pig Day is an event held annually on March 1 in the United States to celebrate the pig. The holiday is most often celebrated in the Midwest of the US. The holiday celebration in the USA was started in 1972 by sisters Ellen Stanley, a tea ...

, it was founded by Brooks Reynolds, and the 2013 sold 8000 tickets in three minutes. Humor about bacon includes an April Fool's day story about a putative all-bacon restaurant and the supposed creation of "squeezable bacon" including a video advertisement. A group of graduate students in

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

, Colorado, has established an International Bacon Day celebration which is now in its fifth year. In Portland, Oregon there are multiple bacon events each year, including Portland Baconfest. These are described as "some of the happiest places in the world" by attendees. These events focus on fun just as much as bacon.

Possible decline

Negative publicity surrounding swine flu, although not transmitted via pork product consumption, hit sales and prices in the pork industry in 2009. Heather Lauer, author of ''Bacon: A Love Story'', said of the impact, "Bacon has been around for thousands of years. It has survived numerous health scares. Anyone who attempts to capitalize on this recent event in an effort to destroy the best meat ever will fail." Efforts to alleviate flu concerns and fight back against the anti-pork and bacon tide were reported.Indrani Se
A Swinish Proposal
May 5, 2009, Diner's Journal New York Times

Innovation

Organization

Events

Possible decline

See also

References

Further reading