Why bacon? Because it's even better than butter…..
San Francisco Chef Ryan Farr has stated " There is nothing bacon does not improve. Bacon is the new black." For generations the french seemed to have worn the crown of culinary excellence with their credo of "everything is better with butter". Americans, always up for a francophile challenge, have fought and elbowed their way in by bludgeoning us with bacon. After all butter just makes OTHER things more delicious. Bacon is a decadent delight all by it's lonesome as well as gracing virtually every fast food sandwich and chain restaurant offering- from appetizers to deserts. Bacon plays a starring role in concoctions from bottomless pit barbecue to top chef masterpieces. Whether it's in strips, bits, shakes or fries you can't escape it …. it's even infused into our vodka for the new kids on the block "carnivorous cocktails". Somehow I can't see James Bond switching from his signature martini. On the other hand maybe he would have had it stirred instead of shaken if he had a handy strip to act as a swizzle stick.
Bacon isn't just the new black, it's the new black plus bling.
Is there something special about bacon? You betcha. Bacon hits pleasure centers in our brains in multiple ways that act solo or in a wonderful orchestration. You can say bacon presses our bliss buttons. The food service industry knows all about these bliss buttons. They call it marketing. Marketing is just competitively applied psychology. The food service industry needs you to eat their food and seduce you into returning. In a way they are like casinos - they need to do the right things to make you stick and keep coming back for more. There are several ways they accomplish this but the three that have the most impact are perceived value, convenience and the "crave-ability" factor.
The food service industry accounts for over 95% of all pre-cooked bacon sales.
Fast food giants know that if you add bacon to a product or introduce a new food product then you can expect sales to increase by almost 10%. The chains and franchises spend about $0.10 per slice. Nice little moneymaker. As David Kessler has stated in his excellent book, "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite ", "You know the joke in the food industry: when in doubt, add bacon and cheese to it." The basic ingredients for most food service products is very cheap and bland. It is then layered or fried with various sugary and/or fatty ingredients as well as a lot of chemically produced flavor enhancers. A lot of money and testing has gone in to determining what the public finds the most irresistible. It's a very competitive industry. Bacon gives you a big bang for your buck and that equals increased perceived value.
To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, Home again, home again, jiggly jig.
This mother goose rhyme reminds me that we used to work hard for bacon. Raise a pig, slaughter it, butcher it, cure it, smoke it, cook it and store it. All these things had to be done before we could get one little bite. After World War I, the market became the supermarket and bacon became an american breakfast staple. In the 1970's women began to flood the workplace. Many will remember a popular perfume jingle with a career women singing "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan…" That proved a little easier sung than done. Processed and prepared food offering exploded and instead of bringing home the bacon and cooking it in a pan we picked it up at Burger King or nuked precooked strips in the microwave. As far as the market our preferences soon ran to "shaken bacon" those prepared little bits we could sprinkle on anything for a quick flavor boost. Bacon as bling, the ultimate convenience food.
"I'm a vegetarian. Except for bacon."
This is actually a statement that many people make with a completely straight face. It is a testament to the irresistible nature of bacon. What is it about bacon we find so appealing? Let's begin with taste. Human brains are designed to seek variety in taste sensation and bacon apparently is able stimulate our taste buds with 18 different flavors. That's a pretty good start especially when you consider a third of those are umami . Until very recently the only taste categories were sweet, sour, salt and bitter. Recently a new category has been identified the glutamate derived umami - which is the japanese word for deliciousness. In addition to big flavor, bacon stimulates the rest of our senses - it sizzles on the stove and crunches between your teeth. It smells so good when it is cooking, there is now an alarm clock called "The Wake N' Bacon" that claims to wake you in happily every morning with the wafting aroma of our favorite meat. Want a clearer picture? Homer Simpson rapturously fantasizing. "Mmm…bacon"
It is a new millennia. In order to get control of our eating we have to change our behavior and habits. Bacon and other highly palatable foods are cheap, tasty and convenient. We can't expect ourselves to constantly avoid temptation. If we want to curb our appetites and our growing girths we need to be more mindful of what we eat. Just because it cheap doesn't mean it comes without a price to be paid. You are what you eat…. don't be a pig.
