All Was Dark in the World

Salt or sweet? Most people have a preference for one flavor over another. Salt seekers and sugar seekers, or as a friend claims of herself - sugan - she survives by sugar alone. What do you do, though, when you crave both salt AND sweet?

You reach for bacon.

Oh, yes. Pork belly cured in sugar and in salt, then fried up to the perfect texture (I'm a crispy gal, myself.) All the better when combined in the ultimate breakfast - the bacon and egg sandwich. No, no. I'm sorry. All the fast food joints? Anemic, cardboard versions of breakfast sandwiches. Hell. Is that even *real* bacon? Eh-hem.

Bacon and egg sandwiches were a mainstay of camping during my childhood. They have all kinds of great memories and emotions surrounding them. So imagine how the light went out of my limited culinary world when we discovered that bacon was a migraine trigger. Nitrates. Nitrites. Chemicals I have no hope of spelling all combined to one deadly combination: processed meat.

Any hope I had of enjoying brussels sprouts cooked with a bit of bacon and onion - gone. Bacon and egg sandwiches - gone. Too many southern dishes to speak of - removed from the steadily dwindling diet. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Then, praise be to the 80's, the healthfood craze hit. Wash your mind out with soap. No. NOT turkey bacon. Feh. I'm talking about the sudden availability of bacon without preservatives - no nitrates. No nitrites or other brain-bending chemicals. Initially, it wasn't the greatest. But as time went on, new brands and new varieties appeared - thick-cut, pepper-crusted (mmmm, pepper), maple-smoked, etc, etc.

Brussels sprouts are a going concern at my house again. For me. No one else'll touch 'em. Claim they're cabbage fetuses, but that's another post. And yes. I do allow myself a once a week bacon and egg sandwich. It's a fifteen minute breakfast that let's me wallow in being twelve again. Without all the twelve year-old angst.

As an aside, look at this: http://baconfesthouston.com/and-then-there-was-bacon There's a bacon fest!