Pig Out on Bacon

Bacon is certainly not a new trend in the culinary world. You can find it in any food product from popcorn to mayonnaise to cookies these days. And despite the bad rap bacon gets among health enthusiasts, bacon continues to grow in popularity.

Chef David Burke opened Burke’s Bacon Bar in Chicago last month, which is the country’s first all-bacon restaurant (or at least as close as a restaurant can get to focusing on one ingredient). Eight out of nine “handwiches” (described as mini palm-sized sandwiches that can be held with one hand) contain bacon and of course, you can add bacon to that vegetarian option for $1.

Baconfest Chicago continues to grow in popularity. Last April’s event sold out in 41 minutes. That’s over 3000 tickets in less an one hour! Now, after five successful runs in Chicago, the Baconfest crew is taking their show on the road. Baconfest San Francisco happens this October and Baconfest DC is also in the works.

From Bacon of the Month clubs to bizarre bacon products (Bacon Gumballs, anyone?), to our own Dog’s Ode to Bacon and of course, the ultimate time suck of Pinterest, you could spend hours on the internet solely searching bacon. Just now, I went to Pinterest to add a few pins to our Bacon Lovers board and got sucked into all of the amazing bacon sayings and pictures. Bacon infographics and taco shells, really?

But now, back to bacon news.

Depending on how much you feed your craving for bacon, you may have noticed higher prices on grocery store shelves. In fact, the price of bacon hit an all-time high this past July, even after being adjusted for inflation. The average price of a pound of cured pork belly was more than $5 for the first time in history, in part due to a porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (known as PED), which surfaced stateside this spring.

I always tell people I spent $30K on culinary school to learn that bacon makes everything taste better so a few more dollars for a slab will not deter me!

I was recently inspired by The Chopping Block's latest Google+ Hangout with Chef Jeff Adamek, which features Bacon Jam. Yes, you read that right.

I reached out to Jeff, our resident canning & preserving expert, a couple of months ago to plan this Hangout. I was expecting him to come back with the usual subject matter (think seasonal fruit jam & pickles) for his demo. But no, he brought up bacon as a new way to demonstrate the techniques of canning and preserving. Needless to say, I was in! You should be too.

Watch our Hangout here.

Now that you have a new weapon in the fight against vegetarianism, how will you use it?