Why my unnatural love for bacon is totally acceptable.

Is there anything more delicious than bacon? I ask you seriously, imaginary blog readers! Is there?

I can remember homemade Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sammiches (yes that is the correct spelling) on Saturday afternoons growing up. Being called into the kitchen from a vigourous game of Star Wars, "riding bikes", working a lemonade stand, or just plain old "let's play guns". All of these activities took place outdoors, by the way, regardless of weather (did I just inadvertantly demonstrate I am old?). I don't recall being more excited for a Saturday lunch than when my mom made those BLTs. Fresh tomato, crisp lettuce, a thin layer of mayonnaise, all on toast, but nothing was more important than those delicious strips of porky goodness. BACON!

Flash forward several years and bacon is still an important staple of the refridgerator stable. House rule: There must be, at all times, a minimum of one unopened package of bacon in the fridge. You never know when it may be needed. Whenever you sit down to have yourself a delicious breakfast, bacon MUST be there. Whenever you're struggling for ideas on what to have for lunch, throw some bacon on a sammich, it's delicious! Whenever you're not sure how to make dinner a little more flavourful, put some bacon on top! Bacon is so versatile as a food, that it may be necessary to redefine it as a condiment in this new century.

Think of it this way; remember when Chuck Norris jokes were all the rage? Chuck Norris doesn't do push ups, he does "earth downs". Chuck Norris doesn't breathe, he holds air hostage. Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice! And so on...take a look around the intrawebs and you will quickly notice that bacon is the Chuck Norris of food! There are thousands of products made from, or made to resemble bacon; wallets, bandaids, belts, hats, watches, everything! You'll find entire websites dedicated to bacon. Recently friends have sent me links to; A) a video of some guys wrapping a thanksgiving turkey in bacon (after stuffing a chicken inside and filling it with beef) and B) a photo from a diner in the United States where you can actually order "A Cup of Bacon - $1.99", which I'm assured goes down smooth with a big plate of syrupy waffles! Bacon is an internet meme on the level of Chuck Norris! This another reason why it is a great time and totally acceptable to be a lover of bacon! You can find it everywhere! Ah, what marvelous times we live in! Of course, the only downside about this bacon cultural coup is it's highjacking by hipsters. (shakes fist at the sky) "Grahhh Hipsters!!!!"

More often than not, my bacon of choice is Maple smoked bacon. Most of the time, once it's cooked, you can't really taste the maple, but it's during that cooking phase that the aroma of delicious wafts throughout the house and embeds itself in the drywall pores for future enjoyment. Recently I found some peppercorn wrapped bacon at the grocery store. I saved that special for Christmas Day, and it was glorious!

House Rule: Never let a slice of bacon go uncooked, it ruins it for later. When a package of bacon is opened, the whole package must be cooked at that time, and preferably eaten while watching football. While, it is slightly less acceptable to refridgerate cooked bacon for future use, it is allowed because bacon is delicious anytime.

Did you know that bacon is a great way to convert vegetarians back to eating meat? Yes, this is true. Anecdotally, many ex-vegetarian friends have indicated that the smell of cooking bacon is what eventually made them cave in to eating the flesh of animals once more. In fact, my ex-partner who had been a vegetarian for 16 years, began eating bacon after having smelled it cooking in our house every Sunday for 4 years. While this was extremely exciting, it did create a new problem as she then began to share my package of bacon every Sunday, limiting my socially acceptable weekly bacon binge. Although at the same time, it made my unnatural love for bacon even more socially acceptable in the household circle.

As alluded, I tend to reserve my bacon binges for Sunday mornings. I have yet to find anything better than cooking up a package of bacon, adding some eggs, maybe some toast and a tall glass of juice and sitting down to watch a day of football on television. As we roll into the weekend of NFC and AFC NFL Championship games, I have a fresh, unopened package of Maple Smoked Bacon sitting in the fridge, just waiting to be cracked open and fried Sunday morning. Delicious.

Reflecting on this post, and the points noted within, perhaps my love for bacon, which is totally acceptable, is not so unnatural after all. Perhaps it is the most natural love that exists. Perhaps if more of the world embraced a love for bacon, we would be able to avert all wars and disagreements and just share in the savoury flavour of a finely fried strip of bacon. That's why dreamers refuse to stop dreaming. Imagine, imaginary readers, a world of bacon. Yum.