All fried pork, all the time at 'BaconCamp'

Contra Costa Times (MCT) - No matter how solid your recipe is, it is difficult to impress the inventor of the Turbaconducken, a chicken stuffed in duck stuffed in a turkey, all wrapped in bacon.

I found this out at the recent inaugural "BaconCamp, San Francisco," a meeting and bacon recipe judging competition populated by the strangest and most vocal bacon lovers.

These are not your ho-hum "Let's have some bacon for breakfast" types of guys and gals. These are the people who buy pillows that look like bacon and who spend hours in the kitchen dreaming up something new to do with bacon. They were wearing stickers with pigs on them, and so many of them wanted silk-screened shirts with a slice of bacon printed on them that the T-shirt maker broke his gear mid-event.

They are part of an increasing number of people who think of bacon as more than a source of protein _ it's a lifestyle. Unlike other pork products, this "meat candy" has a ravenous following.

The Turbaconducken inventor, slightly built Corey James, was a judge along with five other self-professed bacon "experts."

James' resume is the most impressive of the bunch _ the Southern California resident publishes Bacon Today (www.bacontoday.com), an online bacon news site that offers up at least one new bacon story a day. More are published on what he calls a "heavy bacon news day," such as when the New York Times published the legendary "Bacon Explosion" _ a recipe made of bacon wrapped around sausage and even more bacon _ or when a woman with the last name Bacon won a pig-calling contest.

His Web site, which reports more than 100,000 unique visitors per month, is fueled by an absolute passion for the pork product with a popularity online and in real life that doesn't appear will be waning anytime soon.

'SINFUL AND DELICIOUS'

"Bacon is both sinful and delicious," James says. In an increasingly health-conscious society, he adds, bacon is for the rebels, the James Deans of foodies. "There's a shock value to the fact that people are eating so much bacon."

"Seduced by Bacon" is a top-selling 2006 cookbook that author Joanna Pruess says is so popular, it went into its fourth printing within months of publication.

Her book includes bacon poems ("For us the pig's the means, while bacon is the end/ Providing gustatory heights to which we can ascend") and bacon photos along with stories of the history of bacon.

"They say with vegetarians, bacon is the one thing they miss the most," Pruess says, citing a much-rumored legend among bacon lovers. "You need so little of it to add so much flavor."

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BACON CONFESSION

I am a big fan of bacon. I have bacon art on my walls and for at least two years, my birthday presents have primarily been bacony in nature, such as bacon chocolate or a bacon wallet. I stuffed my face with chocolate chip and bacon cookies during a holiday cookie exchange in December and did my research for this story by trying what may be San Francisco's most unusual bacon dish _ a small plate of egg on sourdough bread with a small scoop of bacon ice cream at the Infusion Lounge.

At BaconCamp, I was around my people, my fanatical bacon-loving brothers and sisters. The mood in the room was jovial and friendly, with a local buttonmaker passing out bacon-theme buttons and people sharing their bacon goodies with anyone who wanted a taste. The free beer didn't hurt either.

Our country is fighting two wars. We are in the midst of a recession, and several people in the room were probably looking for work. But everybody was celebrating bacon that day.

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COMFORT FOOD

Linda Wyner, Pleasanton, Calif.'s Pans on Fire cooking school and cookware store co-owner and food anthropologist, says the passion for bacon may just be in our genes. It reminds us of home cooking, even ancestral memories of cooking meat over fire.

A rabid passion for bacon, though?

"Everything is so sensitive and stressful right now that grabbing these flavors and aromas are comforting and terrific," she says. "It's a whole lot cheaper to wrap a piece of bacon around a date and peanut butter than it is to take a mortgage on a house. People can have an evening of unbridled indulgence and feel they deserve it 'cause of all they've been through."

THEATER SCENE

When the competition at BaconCamp started, the scene was as good as theater. "The Rev." Tex B. Acon held a minisermon as he introduced his maple bacon lollipops (www.lollyphile.com), which some of the judges determined were not bacony enough.

As the afternoon wore on, the judges tasted bacon-infused bourbon (yuck!), warm bacon and blue cheese dip (yum!), bacon hummus (yum yum!) and dry-as-a-bone bacon brownies (blech!).

Then, at one very distinct moment, a stunned silence fell over the room. It was the moment when San Mateo's Christian Williams, who stands 6 feet 3 inches tall but is closer to 7 feet with his mohawk, introduced his "bacone." This thing was brilliant _ it was bacon deep-fried into a cone shape, stuffed with eggs and hash browns and topped with a country biscuit and gravy. A fat-packed handheld bacon breakfast you can eat like an ice cream cone!

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"If they built a statue to honor BaconCamp, the statue would be holding the bacone," Bacon Today's James proudly proclaimed.

"Frickin' McDonalds should be selling this thing!" exclaimed judge Scott Kveton, who sells bacon on the Internet through www.bacn.com.

Kveton's favorite bacon concoction is bacon sushi. He denies all rumors that bacon is going out of style.

"I think everyone is trying to be contrarian. How is bacon going to be over?" Kveton says. "When I get orders for bacon, people say, 'Oh my God. You're delivering packages of joy across America.'"

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Bacon Finds

_Bacon-of-the-Month Clubs: Several Web sites offer bacon-of-the month clubs that send artisan bacon to bacon lovers for a fee. Joining the clubs can be expensive, about $150 to $200 for a year, but many bacon fans report enjoying a new pack of bacon each month. www.gratefulpalate.com, thepignextdoor.com, www.baconfreak.com

_Bacon scarves: Why not wear what you love? Order a bacon scarf that's either felted, printed or hand-woven. www.etsy.com (search "bacon scarf"), www.shopsinsgeneralstore.com or knit your own, www.monstercrochet.com/Patterns.html

_Bacon salt: Now you don't have to worry about getting splattered with grease to have everything taste like bacon! www.baconsalt.com

_Bacon-infused booze: Add some bacon to your Bloody Mary with bacon-infused vodka, which you can make yourself. www.instructables.com/id/Bacon_Infused_Vodka

FOR MORE INFORMATION

_BaconCamp is organized in the spirit of BarCamp, an open, participant-based series of meetings that originally started with Web applications and computer technologies. Visit www.baconcamp.org for more information.

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© 2009, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.).