Some “Baco-Mania” extremists perceive “BaconCamp” as a pure, powerful, “porkulent” precursor to “Hog Heaven” itself, while others merely see it as a great opportunity to enjoy and share “All Things Bacon” with their fellow, fanatically flesh favoring and flavoring “Bacon Freaks,”  “Baconistas” and various other people passionately possessed by a prevalent preponderance and predisposition for pork, pork and more pork!

BaconCamp claims to be the world’s greatest bacon cook-off celebration taking place on this and the next closet 4 planets in our solar system. Some sensitive souls tend to view it as a very clear and direct “in your face” by holding such an event in the very heart & soul of “Vegan-ville,” but in fact, if the city of San Francisco is known for anything, it’s the cities very well established and gracious open-ness and tolerance to all walks of like, even those who walk on pigs feet!

The event went off without a hitch in what some might have feared could be relatively “hostile territory” and a marvelous time was had by all. The creative menu items included various versions of delightfully decadent and delicious dishes, with bacon being added to absolutely everything under the sun, from drinks to salads, from fruit and veggie dishes to bacon wrapped bacon, wrapped in more bacon and served with a side of … well you get it … bacon!

“BaconCamp” included it’s hotly contested “creative cooking contest,” featuring … well, do I really need to tell you? The contest was judged by 3 impartial judges and included 33 featured Bacon oriented entries.

For those of you who missed out on all of the fabulous, flesh flavored fun, fret not, as there are already serious plans currently in the works to bring “BaconCamp” to Miami, Washington D.C., Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Raleigh / Durham, NC, and Columbus, OH, just to name a few.

Be sure to keep your ears, eyes, nose and mouth open for a “BaconCamp” extravaganza experience happening in your neighborhood!

Baconfest Chicago is a full day celebration of bacon: a Fest to end all Fests. Baconfest’s roster of bacon-inspired activities, bacon-foods, and bacon-spirits comprise the greatest single culinary and cultural festival ever dedicated to Bacon and Bacon only.

We’ve seen many other Baconfests and even attended a Baconcamp but Baconfest Chicago (April 10, 2010) aims to be the coup de grâce to all other festivals of bacon. How will it achieve the ultimate in baconawesomeness? Start with Baconfest Chicago’s location – the luxurious Stan Mansion. Bacon has finally found a facility worthy of its greatness. Next, take the price tag of $45 that gets you a 12-course bacon-enriched meal prepared by 24 exhibiting chefs from posh Chicago restaurants. Whew! I’m getting hungry just writing this article.

But wait, there’s more (that’s right I went there). The festivities for Baconfest Chicago also include:

• An amateur bacon cook-off sponsored by Nueske’s
• A bacon poetry competition
• A Bacon Expo where you can meet artisan bacon-makers and bacontrepreneurs and sample a wide spectrum of local craft bacons and bacon-related products.
• The Bacon Café, Bar & Cocktail Lounge, local restaurants will serve bacon-based snacks; local bakeries will concoct bacon-sweets; local bars will serve up bacon cocktails and refreshing beer.
• On stage local artists, poets, musicians and theater-makers will join with bacon experts from all around the region during the Bacon Cultural Explosion.
• And to top it all off, the Golden Rashers, the Oscars of the bacon world, presented to the winners of the Pro & Amateur Bacon Cook-offs, as well as a bevy of other prize categories.

Okay people. You love bacon. Chicago is a major airport hub. You bought your tickets right?

If you do attend Baconfest Chicago, please send us any photos, videos, or stories you’d like to share with the bacon-loving world. We’ll be glad to post them.

Okay, BT Readers, Eugenia P. needs our help and needs it fast. Here’s the email she wrote…

Hey there – I work at a pretty well known company in WA and have been tasked to come up with an ingenious breakfast event that does not resemble the standard boring breakfast display of bagels, fruit, and muffins. I had an ephifany moment when I thought “who doesn’t love bacon?” – to which my co-workers response was “even vegeterians love bacon”

Anyways, I would love to start a quick dialogue with someone at Bacon Today about creative ideas (including what to serve) for this event. Any takers to help me?

Quick summary:
Event will take place on the first floor atrium of a 4 story bldg from about 8am – 10am. Purpose is to get people interested in stopping by our table to chat with us about ‘our services’ we are presenting. The majority of employees in this particular bldg are professional males in their late 20′s to mid 40′s. Attendance is TBD – we most likely can anticipate 100-200 people during the course of the 2 hours and our budget would be no more than $700.

Thanks for your time!

For our money, there’s nothing better than the bacone, which we were first introduced to during Baconcamp 2009 San Francisco…

The Bacone is basically a bacon cone stuffed with eggs, biscuit gravy, hash browns and topped with a tasty buttermilk biscuit.

But Eugenia needs your help, too. Leave a comment below with your most creative bacon breakfast idea.

– Mr. B

The Bacontini gave us our first foray into the world of alco-bacon. Made by a bar in Las Vegas, it’s the perfect combo of bacon and alcohol. When we saw this next link, we thought it was also going to be an awseome combo of bacon and booze.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. Turns out the Meatini is much more similar to the bacone than the bacontini.

Travel along on a heartwarming journey through a random morning with the Veitches. Turns out Mr. Veitch is a bit of an experimental cook who likes to use bacon to try new things out. There are many worthwhile tests in this blog post. First, he tries multiple molds for making bacon bowls. He also creates “meat ice” and uses mushrooms for drink umbrellas.

The result takes you to a delicious, if not remotely healthy breakfast meal where you can even eat the dishes.

In the creator’s own words, “VERDICT: SUCCESS! THE MEATINI IS LITERALLY THE BEST THING EVER INVENTED IN THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING EVER!”

That’s a rather good review in my eyes.

– Mr. B

We shot a ton of video on our way to and from Baconcamp 2009 in San Francisco. We even shot some video from the judges panel as we tasted all the bacon samplings at the event. We then compiled all the videos into a YouTube playlist, which you can watch in the player below. Hover your cursor over the player below and use the navigation arrows to toggle through the individual videos.

We streamed video on Ustream live from the plane’s WiFi internet connection. The video is incredibly boring, but we just wanted to prove it was possible. Check it out — live video from on board an airplane at 30,000 feet.

Thanks again to everyone at Baconcamp for a fun event. Thanks also to Virgin America airlines for making our flights very enjoyable.

On Saturday, March 21, 2009, we attended the very first Baconcamp. This un-conference was held in the spirit of Barcamp and was attended by a wide range of bacon lovers from all over the place.

I’m borrowing a bit from Scott Kveton’s recap of the event (and using some of his super cool photos too), so thanks to Scott and all the folks at Bacn.com for that and working hard to put on a great event.

Mike & I sat on the panel of celebrity judges for the food+bacon portion of Baconcamp. Joining us were (listed by Twitter name) @iamcal, @arielwaldman, @micahsaul, Otto Von Danger (founder of BaconFest), and @kveton. Our Twitter name is @bacontoday in case you were wondering. With over 40 bacon-related dishes to sample, it was a long and bacony journey and very difficult to keep sharp on our scoring as we neared bacon coma.

We’ll list all the bacon dishes in a later article. For now, we’ll just list the winners. Quoting from Scott Kveton’s recap:

“The audience was given 3 votes which they could put towards the “Best Overall” and we recognized those with “Grand Prize” and “Runner-up” trophies.

• Grand Prize: Maker’s Mark Ice Cream – @mooflyfoof
• Runner-up: Chicken-fried Bacon – mp

The judges also had a few prizes they wanted to hand out based on the dishes we all sampled:

• Judges Choice: The Bacone – Christian from Wikia
• Judges Choice Runner-up: Potato bacon tart
• Best presentation: Maple Bacon Lollipop
• Most scientific: Bacon Hyper-cube
• Most likely to tempt a veggie: Bacon hummus
• Best Soup: Bacon Pea Soup – @oznog
• Best effort, worst food: Bacon Brownies (hint: don’t mention poop during your preso)”

That ought to whet your bacappetites just enough for now. Check back soon for more updates and our video documenting the event titled “24 Hours of Bacon”.

Photo credit to Scott from the place where you should buy bacon.

This Saturday, March 21st is going to be the day that the first official BaconCamp San Francisco will be held in San Francisco. Learn all about it, including where it is and how to RSVP on the BaconCamp site.

YouTube user fugitivepeas has provided the first teaser video to get us all excited about the event. 

Both Corey and I plan to attend and we’d love to seet as many of our San Francisco readers as possible, so please come if you can.

-- Mike

2008 was a year drenched in bacony goodness. Of course, 2008 was the year that saw the founding of this very web site and also a string of bacon-themed events that surely helped fuel the bacon-loving fire of countless humans around the globe. The following is the recap of the third event named Baconfest 2008 to which our spectacular readers have brought our attention. This great story inspires us even further to attend the festivites at Baconcamp in San Francisco on March 21.

Enjoy!

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Being such a bacon lover, I oft research bacon recipes.  Some inspire me, so I try them out when I can.  But there is a plethora of them.  I only have so much spare time.  So I thought to myself, “Self… there is no way we can research all the bacon recipes that are available in books and online, let alone try to make them!  We need to find a way to get others to help us.  Maybe our best friends can find a new bacon recipe, make it and bring it over for us to eat.  Nah, they won’t do that.  We would have to promise to get them drunk or laid.  The first is possible, but the second has ethical and legal issues with which we cannot morally cope.  We could make bacon-infused bourbon for Bacon Manhattans.  A smokey one one do nicely.  We could also infuse vodka with a maple bacon for Bloody Mary.  Mmmmm… they sound good, even in our own head!  Should we invite our friends over for a theme party?  Knowing us so well, they would probably see right through that.  We need co-hosts.  Our fiance is an obvious (and required) cohort.  Maybe another friend in addition that is as much of a fan as bacon & spirits as we are.  That might… just… work…”

Boy-Oh-Boy, did it ever!  That conversation I had in my head was the most concise & effective one I ever had.  Baconfest 2008 was an absolute smash.  The kitchen of our home was a little crowded and busy, but we made due.

The kitchen of our home was a little crowded and busy, but we made due.
You are probably interested in learning what we had to eat.  The list is as follows:

• Bacon, Broccoli & Cheese Calazone
• Cobb Pasta
• Mini Turkey BLTs
• Chocolate-Bacon Cupcakes
• Pancetta Wrapped Shrimp
• Bacon Wrapped Dates w/Almonds
• Bacon Leek Quiche
• Bacon Chocolate Cracker Squares
• Bacon Rye Cheese Sandwiches
• Bacon Wrapped Chicken
• Romano Cheese Smoked-Bacon Popcorn
• Bacon Mac & Cheese
• Cheddar Cheese Maple-Bacon Popcorn
• Vanilla Ice Cream Topped w/Bacon Caramel
• German Potato Salad
• Bacon, Broccoli, Raisin & Sunflower Salad
• Bacon Pasta “Surprise”
• Bacon Veggie Quiche
• Bacon Wrapped Deep Fried Brats
• Twice Baked Potatoes w/Bacon
• Carbonara
• Potato Chips w/Sour Cream Bacon Dip
• An Assortment of Bacon Dipped in Chocolate

What a lineup.  There was enough food to feed an army.  The items that did NOT make it (due to last minute substitutions or no-shows) include:

• Bacon Wrapped Scallops
• Spinach Salad w/Bacon Dressing
• Bacon Blueberry Cobbler
• Bacon Casserole Surprise
• Bacon Chili
• Bacon Home-smoked Pork Belly
• Bacon Greek Salad w/Fakin’ Bacon
• Bacon Cinnamon Rolls
• Bacon Gummy Candy
• Bacon Jelly Beans
• Bacon Brittle
• Emu Bacon
• Wild Boar Bacon
• Candied Bacon
• Bacon Pizza

There were so many excellent creations, it is difficult to say which one was best.  I thoroughly enjoyed everything I ate.  And I ate EVERYTHING.  The dishes with which I was most impressed were the the Bacon Chocolate Cracker Squares (in it’s simplicity & familiarity) and the Bacon Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Almonds (something entirely different).  Mmmm-Mmmm-MMMM!!!

On the way out, everybody had full bellies, big smiles, trays of leftovers and was talking about what they will bring to make Baconfest 2009 even better.  Personally, besides offering cholesterol screening and hypertension counseling, I do not think it could go any better.

It’s amazing.  Bacon all by itself is wonderful.  Some say one of life’s greatest gustatory pleasures.  The aroma of it frying evokes ravenous hunger.   Combine it with another of your favorite ingredients or dishes and it takes a meal to a whole new level.  Gather your friends, fuel it with alcohol (bacon-infused alcohol) and it can be one of the best parties you can throw.

I need to retire to the living room for a Sunday afternoon and evening of NFL.  If I could only find something to eat.

Porcinely Yours,

Michael B.

—–

Thanks for the recap Michael and folks, keep those bacony-good stories coming to bacontoday@gmail.com.

–Corey James