Makin' Bacon

I have a whole group of blog posts labeled "Random," and it's really a perfect catch-all for the weird, uncatogorizble things I end up writing about.  And this post fits the bill perfectly--what could be more random that a weekend post about the merits of bacon in all of its unusual forms?  It's an odd post, that's for sure...but why not?  I haven't mentioned bacon since the great Jack in the Box post in early March.  So I'd say this was long overdue.

Two bacon references in the news over the past few weeks got my mind wandering in the direction of this delicious topic.  First, I saw a brief clip of a restaurant in Anaheim Hills, California that was serving a different kind of burger.  Everyone knows that adding bacon to a hamburger makes it better...by simple extrapolation, a burger made entirely out of bacon is absolute perfection.  The brief clip I saw didn't mention the name of the restaurant, but I had to find out more.

A little searching revealed that the inventor of this slab of awesomeness is a restaurant called Slater's 50/50, which has locations in Anaheim, Huntington Beach, and San Diego.  The "50/50" part of the restaurant's name refers to its flagship burger, which is a half-and-half blend of ground beef and ground bacon.  That's all well and good, but a half-bacon burger was rather disappointing after the rumblings I'd heard about a 100% bacon burger.  If I had to quantify the disappointment, I'd say it was approximately 50% as exciting as the real deal.

Fortunately, my fantasies were restored after some additional searching.  During the month of July, in a meaty, celebratory nod to patriotism and freedom, Slater's is featuring a special 'Merica Burger (for those of you who don't read so good, that's short for America).  And they did just about everything they could to avoid diluting the bacon-y goodness on this one--the patty is 100% bacon and comes topped with bacon-cheddar cheese, thick-cut bacon strips, and special "bacon island" dressing.  There's also an egg and a bun involved, which seem strangely out of place.

I must say, Slater's has their act together in the bacon department.  I'm not sure how Jack in the Box gained so much attention with their milkshake, because Slater's has been slinging bacon up and down their menu for years, from appetizers to desserts.  The appetizer section offers Bacon Mac 'N Cheese, main courses include the famous 50/50 burger and turkey bacon chili, and customers can round of their meals with a bacon milkshake or a bacon brownie.

As if I needed another reason to visit California.  The 'Merica is only available during the month of July, and the real tragedy is that I passed through San Diego, Anaheim, and Huntington Beach just last month!  If only I'd known about this, I would have changed the timing of my vacation.  Looks like I have about two weeks left to make things right in the world...

My other recent bacon encounter was a far less appetizing prospect that I also heard about on TV.  A story mentioned that someone had recently invented a squeezable bacon paste.  As awful as this sounds, I still had to find out more.  Could anyone really be lazy enough to consider chewing real bacon a cumbersome chore?  But this bacon paste still has me puzzled, because the story I heard made it sound as if this stuff just hit the market.  Yet I found plenty of squeezable bacon products.  This one is a Swedish-based product in what appears to be a ketchup bottle:

And the stuff that comes out looks like it contains almost as much plastic as the bottle itself:

And this yogurt-looking tub of mystery meat doesn't exactly whet my appetite:

Despite all of my searching, I still couldn't find a single story about any new type of squeezable bacon paste that came out in the past few months.  Hoax?  Parody?  Someone's wishful, imaginative thinking?  Who knows...but the world has already witnessed similar products, and I can't say that we're better off for having seen them.  If this bacon paste does exist, I just hope it's another foreign invention.  With Slater's effort, I'm genuinely proud to be an American...and I can only assume that the Swedish population is feeling more nauseous than patriotic after Squeez Bacon.

Here are some links to stories about Slater's and the 'Merica...including a post by the "Hamblogger"...what a great name for a blog.  I'd post some links to Squeez Bacon, but no one wants to see that.

http://thehamblogger.com/2899/slaters-5050-anaheim-hills-ca/

http://eater.com/archives/2012/07/06/slaters-5050-serves-a-100-bacon-burger-tops-it-with-bacon-cheese-bacon-dressing-bacon.php