grandpa ray’s tidbits

Food for thought in 2024

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BACON: A SLICE OF HEAVEN—

Without question, bacon is the most popular breakfast food in Western civilization. In the USA alone, 1.7 billion pounds ( that’s 18 pounds per person) are consumed every year. Over the course of bacon’s evolution, it has taken many forms, most of which would not be recognizable as the popular rasher of today. Nonetheless, bacon from the pork’s belly is a peculiar British invention.

In England, families raised and cured pork in their basements; a practice that was eventually outlawed in 1930 because of sanitation concerns. They would fatten their pigs with acorns in the  Spring and Summer, then in the Winter they would slaughter them. Each family had its own unique “secret rub”—various combinations of spices and salt. To this day, Wilkshire, England is considered the bacon capitol of the world. This is because, in 1770, John Harris introduced the first commercial production of the salty delight. In 1924, Oscar Meyer made pre-sliced and packaged bacon commercially available to the masses. People were immediately hooked, if not addicted.

Addicted? Actually, yes! People naturally crave salt, but it’s the six, flavor-bearing amino acids in bacon that act as a force multiplier in the benign addiction. Even though bacon is fashionably used in numerous creative ways—bacon mania—it has found a unique niche as the premiere breakfast food. Why breakfast? How did this come to be?

In 1925, breakfast was transformed forever; Beechnut packaging, hired Edward Bernays to head a promotional campaign that would convince people that a breakfast with bacon in the morning would replenish vital energy lost during sleep. The campaign was so successful that bacon became the dominant partner in the “bacon and eggs” breakfast we all have come to love and enjoy.