Why do people about ages 25 to 50 love bacon so much? Before I present to you these 11 bacon recipes that will thrill and scare you, I have a few theories about why hipsters and aging hipsters and people who think they are aging hipsters but are really just aging love bacon. The first one is that when bacon hits the palate (or the nostrils), one’s head fairly explodes with pleasure. Then there’s the fact that it’s good for the hangovers. Then there’s the fact that every other day they tell us something is good for us and then that it’s bad for us and then it’s good for us. Bacon is a food item that we are rarely encouraged to eat, health-wise. Perhaps crumbling a slice or two on a salad won’t be the end of you. But Barbecue Bacon Burger Log might.
As the above aptly illustrates, to say we love bacon is to say, “Screw you world, stop telling me what’s good for me, world, you big jerk who changes your mind every five seconds anyway, I am going to just eat bacon until I die and you will not stop me. You, dumb world, go right ahead and try to be healthy, whatever that means — don’t eat carbs, then suddenly eat them, then don’t eat dairy, then eat it, then don’t drink alcohol, then drink. You go ahead and equivocate. I’ll just be sitting here enjoying my bacon.”
Other things that are appealing about bacon: the sort of perverse thrill we get from saying, “Who cares, I am going to eat Babe,” and then, for those of us who are Jewish, from the fact that Babe is also forbidden. This Bacon Turtle seems unkosher in at least five ways, which on a Kabbalic level is almost auspicious:
Anyway, the generation that pays half our income on rent or a mortgage only to know that the children we support will one day be fighting armed battles for water needs something to live for, and that thing is bacon. As you can see, on some level we hope it kills us before we truly realize what’s up. But the fact that we have figured out how to put it in ice cream means that come on — we already know!
Ditto this sort of bacon matrix wrapped inside a pizza.
Throwing a wrench into the whole thing are those lunatics over at Weston Price who tell us bacon is actually maybe good for us. So then pigs got more artisanal and shit and now bacon is both pure and decadent at the same time.
Anyway, Buzzfeed has all these horrible bacon plans plus seven more, with step-by-step instructions! Go on. You show your circulatory system who’s boss.
