Last week’s BOTW was devoured so quickly that we were unable to offer any photos other than of the empty packet. This time around we were able to exercise a little more restraint, so here are a few photos illustrating the various states of awesomeness the bacon went through in our Bacon Aficionado frying pan, from raw to perfectly cooked!

Elvis of course loved to eat deep-fried squirrel, which I can only imagine would be even more delicious wrapped in bacon. I wonder if he ever thought of that? I imagine he did. When you’re fat enough to die on the toilet, you’re fat enough to never be more than a few seconds away from a thought about how something can be improved by adding bacon to it.

Thanks, Leah! Don’t forget to bring home the bacon!

Colin writes to ask: “I recently enjoyed some bacon-flavored ice cream. I wonder if you know of any other unusual but desirable uses for bacon. PS: Your site is just what we bacon lovers have all been waiting for.”

The Bacon Answer Man replies: Good question, Colin! The only fault I can find with it is that the words “but desirable” are a little unnecessary because of course as any true bacon aficionado would know, there are no undesirable uses for bacon. It’s good just about any way you can imagine. But if you really want to indulge your bacon fetish – and who doesn’t? – check out this totally OTT recipe entitled “Death by Bacon” which recently stirred up a frenzy in the international bacon community. It’s basically an interwoven matrix of bacon baked in the oven then fried then filled with cheese then rolled into a log of awesome.

Of course now you’ll be more than familiar with the recent sensations that are Bacon Salt and Baconnaise, they have been the talk of the bacon community for some time now. If you haven’t given them a try yet, you should – I particularly recommend the Peppered variety of salt. The only thing I don’t understand about these otherwise excellent products is that they are marketed with the tagline “all the bacon taste without the bacon guilt”. Bacon guilt? What’s that? Why should I feel guilty about eating something so awesome?

Josh writes in: “As a representative of the bacon-loving masses, I humbly request clarification from His Baconness on the following issue: There are many bacon imposters such as Bacon Salt and Bacon popcorn, that despite their crisp bacony flavors do not truly contain bacon. Are these false prophets sent to lead us astray from the true bacon or is it true that all that tastes like bacon is worthy?”

The Bacon Answer Man replies: Bacon is a very large tent and there’s room for everyone inside. Of course as true bacon aficionados we always prefer the real thing whenever possible, but that’s not always available. As much as we might like to fry up a fresh crisp pan of applewood-smoked streaky back bacon while driving in the car or sitting on the toilet, that’s just not always practical. So artificially bacon-flavored snack treats are a perfectly acceptable solution when in a pinch, or indeed whenever the impulse strikes. True bacon lovers appreciate the inimitable taste of bacon from wherever and whenever it may come. We may be bacon aficionados, but we’re not snobs.

Email your questions to the Bacon Answer Man at bacon@bacon-aficionado.com

Invented in the UK, the bacon chip was a perennial favorite in my youth and remains so to this day. I’ve always felt that, as with chocolate, America lags shockingly behind Europe in its attitude toward, and quality of, its crisps but recent years have shown some promising signs of cultural growth as top UK flavors like Salt & Vinegar and Cheese & Onion have made some stateside inroads. But Smoky Bacon has yet to cross the pond, so for my American cousins tragically unaware of this most awesome of flavors, I provide this link so that you might order them online and sample them for yourselves. You can thank me later.

Of course if you’re REALLY serious about your bacon crisps, you need to vault right over the rather pedestrian idea of flavoring regular potato chips with bacon flavoring and proceed to the king of all bacon-flavored snacks – the FRAZZLE.

Frazzles are basically the pure essence of bacon distilled down perfectly into crunchy chip form. Technically they’re corn chips, but that doesn’t diminish the bacon-tastic flavor explosion that occurs with every bite in any way. Seriously, if you’ve never tried these, you must. I’ve even provided a handy link so you can import them! Frazzles even have their very own Facebook fan page with almost 10,000 fans!

Smiths, the inventors of Frazzles, subsequently tried to top themselves with the introduction of Bacon Flavoured Fries, which are basically just posh Frazzles. Launched off the back of the success of Scampi Flavoured Fries, they became popular as a behind-the-bar pub snack but never really captured the imagination of the general public the way Frazzles did. Still, we should never complain about one more bacon-flavored snack.

We’re just getting started here but we’ll be adding lots of fun features soon, such as:

BACON OF THE WEEK

Or month, depending on my schedule and how frequently I find new kinds of bacon worth writing about. But I’m going to kick off this feature with ANDRONICO’S NATURALLY SMOKED BACON, which quickly became my new “go-to” bacon after I recently discovered it at my local Andronico’s. Now I don’t know if there’s an Andronico’s in your neighborhood but if not then you need to rectify that because they are great and so is this bacon. Here’s a photograph I took of the packet I bought. Regrettably the bacon itself is not included in the photo because I already ate it.

Our other regular feature will be:

BACON ANSWER MAN

This is where you can ask me all kinds of questions about bacon. Not science type stuff like “where does bacon come from?” or “is bacon good or bad for you?” because I don’t know that stuff, nor do I care to know. More the important questions like “why does bacon taste so good?” and “where can I buy totally awesome types of bacon?” So go ahead and send your questions to bacon@bacon-aficionado.com and we’ll have our first mailbag Q&A here on the site soon!

Also stay tuned for special guest columnists like Leah who will be handling all the sweet confection-type bacon stuff on the site. Bacon-flavored chocolate and the like. Personally I don’t like that stuff but hey, different strokes and all that.

So, welcome to the wonderful world of bacon and I hope you’ll join me on this journey into bacon and bacon-related things. Bacon!