Too many of us bacon is just another word for meat candy…bacon makes everything better!
Did you know Americans spend more than $4 billion annually on bacon? As we celebrate World Bacon Day, we’re dishing up an indulgent toastie recipe and six fun facts about everybody’s favourite breakfast temptation.
Bacon Day is held on the first Saturday in September each year, after it was conceived in 2004 by a group of Boulder, Colorado graduate students and typically includes consuming bacon for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Bacon dates back at least 3500 years, when the Chinese were the first to cook salted pork bellies; the salt preserved the meat so it could be eaten all year – here we are in 2020 and those tasty, crunchy strips of pork are still the food most likely to convince vegetarians to eat meat.
Here’s some other crazy facts about bacon, bacon and more bacon:
•During World War II, Americans were urged to save bacon fat so it could be used in the manufacture of bombs. It was used to make glycerol, an ingredient in explosives.
•If you’re average, you’ll chow down on more than 8kg of bacon this year.
•Kevin Bacon’s favourite sandwich is the BLAST – bacon, lettuce, avocado, smoked salmon and tomato. In fact, he claims to have invented it.
Kevin Bacon's BLAST invention.
•Two bacon products you can’t eat – bacon-scented bath and shower soap and band-aids that look like strips of bacon.
•The first recorded death by bacon was in 1543 when an English servant was warming herself by the fire and was crushed by four sides of uncooked bacon, which fell from a hook.
•In a 2016 poll, 43% of Canadians said they would rather eat bacon than have sex!
There’s nothing more enticing to the pork addict than a toasted sandwich, or burger oozing melted cheese and crispy bacon. In fact, when bacon sales fell sharply in the 1980s because of a lean meat craze, it was the bacon cheeseburger that started the modern infactuation.
Try this bacon and brie grilled cheese next time you want a fix…the caramelised onions add a sweet touch and the soft brie is the ideal foil for the saltiness of the pork; remember bacon is the duct tape of the kitchen.
