Bacon mania refers to passionate bacon enthusiasm in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

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 Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

focus due in part to the

Atkins diet The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate fad diet devised by Robert Atkins in the 1970s, marketed with claims that carbohydrate restriction is crucial to weight loss and that the diet offered "a high calorie way to stay thin forever". The diet be ...

."'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 A BLT is a type of sandwich, named for the initials of its primary ingredients, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. It can be made with varying recipes according to personal preference. Simple variants include using different types of lettuce, toastin ...

, Cobb salad, clams casino, and

club sandwich A club sandwich, also called a clubhouse sandwich, is a sandwich consisting of bread (traditionally toasted), sliced cooked poultry, fried bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. Mariani, John (July 1995). "The club sandwich." ''Restaurant Hos ...

. 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 AlterNet is a left-leaning online news outlet. It was launched in 1997 by the Independent Media Institute. In 2018, the website was acquired by owners of '' Raw Story''. Coverage Coverage is divided into several special sections related to progr ...

'', October 9, 2010 and

Wendy's Wendy's is an American international fast food restaurant chain founded by Dave Thomas (1932–2002) on November 15, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. Its headquarters moved to Dublin, Ohio, on January 29, 2006. As of December 31, 2018, Wendy's was t ...

'Baconator' (six strips of bacon on a half-pound cheeseburger). The growing popularity of bacon has also encouraged product introductions such as

bacon salt J&D's Down Home Enterprises, also known as J&D's Foods, was an American company founded in 2007 by entrepreneurs Justin Esch and Dave Lefkow to produce vegetarian based, bacon-related products such as Bacon Salt and Baconnaise. In November 2017, th ...

, maple bacon donuts, and

baconnaise Baconnaise is a bacon-flavored, mayonnaise-based food spread that is ovo vegetarian and kosher certified. It was created by Justin Esch and Dave Lefkow, founders of J&D's Foods, in November 2008, and sold 40,000 jars within six months. It was ...

. Bacon 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 jerky and

chocolate-covered bacon Chocolate-covered bacon is an American dish that consists of cooked bacon with a coating of either milk chocolate or dark chocolate. It can be topped with sea salt, crumbled pistachios, walnuts, or almond bits. References on the internet date ...

, all popularized over the internet. Bacon has been adapted into products including bacon bubble gum, bacon band-aids, sizzling-bacon-flavored

rolling paper Rolling paper is a specialty paper used for making cigarettes (commercially manufactured filter cigarettes and individually made roll-your-own cigarettes). Rolling papers are packs of several cigarette-size sheets, often folded inside a cardbo ...

s, 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 ''Portland Monthly'' (also referred to as ''Portland Monthly Magazine'') is a monthly news and general interest magazine which covers food, politics, business, design, events and culture in Portland, Oregon. The magazine was co-founded in 2003 b ...

'' 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'' 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 Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPo ...

presentation of the Obacon project (a recreation of the famous

Obama Hope poster Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

), 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 List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, 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 Fell's Point is a historic waterfront neighborhood in southeastern Baltimore, Maryland. It was established around 1763 along the north shore of the Baltimore Harbor and the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. The area has many antique, music, ...

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 in Des Moines Iowa hosted a sell-out event for more than 300 people. First held March 1, 2008, on National Pig Day, it was founded by Brooks Reynolds, and the 2013 sold 8000 tickets in three minutes. Humor about bacon includes an

April Fool's day April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which ma ...

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,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

, 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 Swine influenza is an infection caused by any of several types of swine influenza viruses. Swine influenza virus (SIV) or swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) refers to any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is endemic in pigs. As ...

, although not transmitted via pork product consumption, hit sales and prices in the pork industry in 2009.

Heather Lauer ''Bacon: A Love Story, A Salty Survey of Everybody's Favorite Meat'' is a 2009 non-fiction book about bacon, written by American writer Heather Lauer. It describes curing and cooking bacon, gives over 20 bacon recipes, and analyzes the impact of ...

, 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