The Average American Consumes Approximately 18 Pounds Of Bacon Each Year!

The first Saturday in September is International Bacon Day and a day to enjoy all things bacon! This delicious food holiday is a favorite for National Day Calendar staff because bacon makes everything better!

• Bacon is pork cured in salt made from cuts of the belly or back of a pig.
• The word ‘bacon’ means “meat from the back of an animal.”
• In the U.S., 70% of all bacon is eaten at breakfast.
• More than two billion pounds of bacon is produced every year in the U.S.
• Curing pork dates back thousands of years. During ancient times, Chinese, Egyptian, and Roman cultures all had methods for preserving pork. However, Romans receive credit for sharing their knowledge of curing pork calling their bacon “petaso.”
• Bacon is one of the most popular and recognizable meat products around the world and is known for its distinctive savory and smoky flavor.
• Bacon is one of the oldest processed meats.
• Different types of bacon:
  • American bacon is the most well-known bacon type. It’s made from pork belly and contains both meat and fat. This type of bacon becomes crispy after cooking.
  • Canadian bacon is made from the lean parts of the pig. Normally, Canadian bacon is similar to ham in flavor and appearance.
  • Pancetta is an Italian bacon made with salt and spices that can be eaten cooked or uncooked. People often use pancetta in sandwiches, but also in some dishes.
  • Guanciale is another Italian bacon commonly used in carbonara and amatriciana. This type of bacon is the fattiest of all other bacon types and is probably the most flavorful.
• 5 Bacon Festivals in the U.S.
  • Bacon Fest, Pennsylvania
  • Bourbon and Brews Festival, Kansas
  • Bacon & Beer Festival, New Hampshire
  • Bacon Bash, Texas
  • Memphis Flyer Bacon & Bourbon, Tennessee
• 1500 BC – Ancient Chinese people used salt from industrial mines to preserve pork fat which eventually evolved into bacon.
• 12th Century – The phrase “bringing home the bacon” originated back in the 12th century when a church in the English town of Great Dunmow created a tradition of gifting bacon to married men who could take an oath that they had not argued with their spouse for a year and a day.
• 1500s AD – Upon the insistence of Queen Isabella of Spain, explorers brought a number of pigs across the Atlantic.
• 1543 – The ailing widow and servant Elizabeth Browne was warming herself by the kitchen fire when she was suddenly crushed by four sides of uncooked bacon. The sides had been hanging from a hook above her when the rope holding them broke.
• 16th Century – The term ‘bacoun’ is used for all pork meat.
• 17th Century – Bacon as it is known today becomes popular, cured with sugar and potassium nitrate and then cold smoked.
• 18th Century – John Harris opened the first bacon processing plant.
• 1924 – The process of conveniently pre-slicing and packaging refrigerated bacon is patented by Oscar Mayer.
• 1939 – 1945 – After cooking their bacon, families return the fat to the butcher who donates it to make explosives from the glycerin.
• 1992 – Hardee’s produced one of the first fast-food burgers served with bacon: the Frisco Burger.
• 2009 – Bacon gets a bad reputation due to its high saturated fat and high sodium content.
• The word “bacon” in the English language seems to have Germanic roots in the word “bak”, which refers to the back of the pig, where the bacon comes from.
• The first factory-made for producing dry-cured bacon was opened in 1770 in the county of Wiltshire, England. The name of the curing method is still called “Wiltshire Cure” to this day, offering a sweeter taste.
• Even though many people consider bacon to be unhealthy, the average American consumes approximately 18 pounds of bacon each year!
• One of the first meals on the moon included a variety of foods that were friendly for space travel – including bacon.
• The National Pork Board has labeled Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto as the ‘father of the American Pork Industry.’ Responsible for bringing 13 pigs with him to the New World in 1539, Soto’s herd grew to 700 in three years.
• The United Church of Bacon in Las Vegas, Nevada, has around 13,000 members. They even perform wedding ceremonies, and fundraisers for charity, and have their very own “9 Bacon Commandments.”
•  Bacon camp is held every year in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Camp Bacon offers a wide range of bacon-related activities which include speakers, cooking classes, and of course, bacon tasting.
•  Oscar Mayer launched an app called Sizzl which helps “true bacon lovers…find each other and potentially meet their soulmates in life and in bacon.”
• Sizzl is like other mobile dating apps in that it accesses your Facebook profile to retrieve your information. It then polls you on your favorite type of bacon. And get this: instead of swiping right or left, you press and hold a “sizzl-meter” for the person you like.
• There’s a bacon cologne for that. A scent by Fargginay, bacōn (pronounced “bay-cone”) is the world’s first bacon fragrance.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Days of the Year

National Today

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