Mammaliciousness

A good friend of mine does not like to eat mammals for various moral, personal, heath, and ethical reasons. It's hard for him because he, like Homer Simpson, really really enjoys the plethora of products that come from the magical source of bacon, pork roll, ham, pork chops, and spare ribs--the pig.

Sow and five piglets from http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/


I respect my friend's decision, mostly because he doesn't get all weird when I chow down on a nice, juicy hunk of bleeding red meat. Yum! He also doesn't lecture me about the morality of the beef industry while wearing leather.

A porterhouse steak on the grill. This is a public domain photo from PDphoto.org

So, on this trip we stopped at Cracker Barrel, which I find to be a truly delightful spot for lunch, despite any allegations of bad practices. You can find the nearest at http://www.crackerbarrel.com/ (No, I'm not getting paid to advertise--I just like them.) The Cracker Barrel of Broome County, NY is my personal favorite. They are SO polite and the food is extra-yummy.

However, it's not the greatest place to bring a friend who doesn't eat mammals. Why? Well, there's bacon in some of the vegetables. Personally, I like bacon-y vegetables. Chef John Besh noted on Iron Chef America, that he didn't know what a vegetable without bacon tasted like when he was a child. And if Chef Besh likes bacon-vegetable combos, why shouldn't I? Yum! (or did I already say that?)

My youngest brother is rather fixated on bacon, and by that I mean that he likes bacon rather more than my other two brothers and Jeffrey Steingarten. Which is rather a lot. He (my youngest brother, not Jeffrey Steingarten) likes to send out bacon-related web sites.

Here are some bacon-oriented sites. http://iheartbacon.com/ http://www.baconunwrapped.com/ http://baconshow.blogspot.com/

I also know some people who like Francis Bacon....erm, not to eat, but to read. Possibly to read about. I don't know that much about Mr. Bacon (or Sir Bacon?), except that he dressed in a way that I would think of now as funny, but at the time was rather fashionable.



This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.


Just think...someone had to sew all those buttonholes by hand. Likely, that someone was a mammal.