Bacon: The Candy of Meat
If you doubted that The New York Times bestselling author and comedian Jim Gaffigan loved food, the title of his latest book, out last week, will set you straight. In Food, A Love Story (Crown Archetype), Gaffigan takes a look at everything from the Baconator to deep-fried ravioli, and we’re sharing some of our favorite excerpts this week.
Photo credit: StockFood / Foodcollection
If I bought this book, I’d probably go right to this section. Bacon is, after all, bacon. Bacon makes people happy. If you walked up to a stranger and said, “Bacon,” they would probably respond with a smile or a “Yes, please!” Everyone loves bacon, but bacon holds a special place in my heart and, I guess, my stomach. My affection for bacon goes beyond any appropriate relationship a man should have with a food item. Even when I look at photos of a stack of crispy bacon, sent to me by the lunatics on Twitter, an involuntary “Aww” creeps out of my mouth like I’m looking at a newborn. Bacon is the candy of meats. Bacon even defies its categorization as a food and becomes a metaphor for wealth. You take care of your family by “bringing home the bacon.” When I bring home the bacon, I just buy more bacon. What else do we really want to spend our money on but bacon? I love everything about bacon. I even love the name Bacon. You can’t tell me some of the success of Kevin Bacon isn’t somehow tied to his name. After all, nobody wants to see a Kevin Tofu movie.
MAN 1: Want to go see this movie with me?
MAN 2: Who’s in it?
MAN 1: Kevin Bacon.
MAN 2: Sounds good.
The Good
The power of bacon seems to know no bounds. It’s not just the taste, which is like eating pure joy. The frying of bacon even sounds like applause. As it is cooked, the crackle of the grease cheers, “Yea, bacon!” The smell of bacon can make a vegetarian renounce their lifestyle. Bacon is so good it is used to improve other foods. If it weren’t for bacon, we probably wouldn’t know what a water chestnut is or why anyone would eat a fig. Bacon bits are like the fairy dust of the food community, sprinkling magical taste on undesirable dishes.
MAN: I don’t want this baked potato.
FAIRY BACONMOTHER: (waves bacon wand over the potato)
(SOUND EFFECT of magic dust: Brrrring!)
MAN: Now it’s my favorite part of the meal! Thank you, Fairy Baconmother!
WOMAN: I don’t want this salad.
FAIRY BACONMOTHER: (waves bacon wand over the salad)
(SOUND EFFECT of magic dust: Brrrring!)
FAIRY BACONMOTHER: Bibbity, Bobbity, Bacon!
WOMAN: Oh my! You just turned it into a delicious entrée. Thank you, Fairy Baconmother!
Of course, once you put bacon in a salad, it’s no longer a salad. It just becomes a game of find the bacon in the lettuce. I always feel like I’m panning for gold. “Found one! Eureka!”
Bacon has special powers. I bet if you sprinkled bacon bits on a strip of bacon you could travel back in time through a tasty vortex. This would be redundant for me, because I would just travel back to a time when I was eating bacon. It would be a bacon-to-bacon time-space continuum.
More stories about Jim Gaffigan’s favorite pork product:
Bourbon Candied Bacon Recipe
How to Make Bacon for a Crowd
Testing the Theory of “Everything’s Better with Bacon”
Jim Gaffigan on Kale
