Let Us Now Praise Bacon

An homage to the belly of the beast
Scott Raab

A traveling salesman is driving through the countryside when he sees a pig with a wooden foreleg hobbling near a barn. Curious, the salesman stops and knocks on the farmer's door.

"What's up with that pig?" he asks.

" 'Tain't no regular pig, mister," says the farmer. "One night last year, the house catches fire and that pig come a-runnin', busts right through the door, up the stairs, and drags me and the missus outta bed. Saved both our lives, that pig."

"Amazing," the salesman says. "But that doesn't explain the wooden leg."

"Well, hell, buddy," says the farmer, "you don't eat a pig like that all at once."

THAT'S NOT JUST A CUTE JOKE. It's deep, too; you've got the skewed nature of human gratitude, the marrow-deep bigotry our species inflicts upon the rest of the animal kingdom, and the predatory but sadly displaced hostility the farmer obviously fears to direct at his wife, a feckless harridan who forgot to turn off the oven.

Mainly, though, you've got this: Pigs taste great, and nothing else about them truly matters. They may be smart, yes, and they may be peaceable (absent the most severe provocation, they will not assault Homo sapiens), yet nobody gives an oink. Even the pig to whom you owe your life is absolutely delicious, too good not to eat.

I've eaten my share, plus maybe some of yours. Hocks, chops, and ribs; chitterlings, knuckles, and jowls; hams, shoulders, and shanks: Oh, I've tasted me some pig. And in a class all by its lonesome, indisputably the most savory part of a pig, bacon. Goddamn, how I do love the taste of bacon, the yin of flesh and fat, the yang of salt and smoke, the downright sinful joy of it.But it isn't just the taste, buddy-you and I know that. Proust can keep his tea pastries; I smell bacon and swoon. Life's clock stops. I see my father at the stove. I hear him singing "Show Me the Way to Go Home." It's 4:00 a.m., our fishing rods are in the backseat of the Hudson, I'm sitting in my pajamas in the kitchen, rubbing my eyes, smelling bacon-that smell uncurled me from sleep-listening to the hiss and pop of it above my old man's warbling, and when that first still-sizzling strip of swine meets my lips and teeth and tongue, I feel more free of care, more at home in this world, than I ever will feel again. That's bacon to me.

I love bacon so much that I no longer order it at restaurants, because what, really, is the point of eating two, three, or four paltry strips of bacon? That's not even foreplay. But Saturday mornings I have a standing breakfast date with a pal who always gets an order, and he'll usually toss a strip or two my way. That's a double gift: the gift of his friendship, plus the gift of the pig. That's bacon to me.

I prefer to feast on bacon at home. I get me some soft bread. Soft. Then I panfry up a pound of bacon. Not crisp, chewy. The whole damn slab, yeah, because it cooks down pretty good. Then I lay out a couple of sandwiches. I put a dabbing of pho sauce on 'em-hottish Vietnamese red. Then I press the bread down and let it soak up the grease and sauce. Then I eat. That's not just bacon to me; that's heaven.

Guilt? Health? Look, I've got a few years behind me and plenty of regret for the hurts I've put on this world; a pound or two of bacon down my craw doesn't add up to much remorse. Healthwise, I don't know. I wouldn't recommend a steady diet of bacon to anyone, but that's mainly because it wouldn't taste so special if you ate it all the time.It broils down to this: We're alive, right now, our hearts beating strong, and we're living in a golden age of pig. Specialty houses are selling boutique bacon, thick-cut bacon, ten-simoleons-per-pound bacon. There is a Bacon of the Month Club, and there are raging debates about the arcana of curing and smoking and what to feed the hog before the slaughter. Hot chefs now crumble bacon into their confit and emulsify its fat to sauce their soft-shell crabs. I'd say bacon is back, but bacon never went anywhere. You name it, bacon survived it: Deuteronomy, Oprah, the tech bubble bursting. Bacon abideth.

So join the party. Celebrate the belly of the beast. And pay no heed when the National Pork Producers Council prints drivel like "Two slices of cooked bacon contain just 73 calories and 6 grams of fat" and "just two slices of bacon can add volumes of flavor, turning an average meal into a taste sensation."

Two slices? You don't eat a pig like that all at once, buddy, but that ain't eating pig at all.