About

Baconfest Chicago will be on April 10, 2010 at the Stan Mansion in Logan Square.

Location | Manifesto | Bios

Location – Stan Mansion

Stan Mansion
Logan Square
2408 North Kedzie Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647

Manifesto

We all remember our first taste of bacon. Maybe it wasn’t perfect: maybe the bacon was cold; maybe there was congealed bacon grease clinging to the rasher. But we remember it, because it opened the door to a lifetime of bacon memories. It was that first crispy step on the path to a bacony life. It set the bar for every slab and slice and hunk of sweet cured pork that was to follow.

Baconfest Chicago is in the business of creating new bacon memories. To that end, we find it convenient to list our beliefs about bacon so that you may discern whether the bacon memories we offer are the ones you’ll want lodged in your head.

We are catholic

That’s small “c” catholic, not big “C” Catholic. We treasure bacon in all of its forms, in every preparation. Sure, we have our preferences – some like it baked and some like it fried, some like it smoked and some like it cured; some like it sweet and some like it salty. But we reject nothing at first blush. We believe that the power of bacon is its universality, its capacity to enhance almost any flavor it comes into contact with.

We resist flash judgments

It’s easy to succumb to the “ick” factor, but we accept that every bacon experience may contain the seed of greatness, and so never refuse to try a new bacon combination. Although our minds may rebel, our palates are the final judge. Like that first pioneer who dropped peanut butter into his chocolate or a scoop of vanilla ice cream into his Guinness, we say yes to random greatness, and yes, again YES to trying new things.

We treasure the new and revere the old

There is a thrill in novelty – we are genetically hardwired to seek it. So we seek out new ways to enjoy our favorite meats whenever we can. We are not complacent, never satisfied that we have eaten the best of anything. There is always a new and better flavor down the line. But we do not fetishize the new to the exclusion of the tried and true. Every bacon morsel contains a memory – a solid tangible moment in time, an experience at which the bacon is the core, but the context is the key. Therefore, we value our old bacon memories and seek to revisit them whenever the impulse strikes. We would never abandon a bacon preparation just because it’s not the newest – we can no more disown bacon and eggs than we can disown our own grandmothers. We live in one moment in a great continuum – a single fatty cross section of our lives – a straight line from birth to death, punctuated by cured meat. We cannot discard our past; without it we have no future.

We favor the underdog, but celebrate greatness at any size

Nothing gets our motors running like tasting bacon from a tiny pig farm in the great hinterlands. We root for these pioneers – they who reject fiscal better judgment and take a chance on making their living through something hand-crafted and artisanal, something impractical and delicious, something perfect and small. But we know that sometimes, greatness comes from organizations of great size. So we refuse to pre-judge based on size, history or organizational scale. We judge only on results.

We believe bacon opens new doors

We are part of the human fraternity – every shared experience brings us closer to our fellow man. We believe that eating together is the ultimate equalizer – when we break bread, we create bonds. When we break bacon, we make community. Therefore we are committed to creating shared bacon experiences that strengthen the bonds of the human community, across religion, across race, across gender, across class. That is the promise of bacon. That is the aim of BaconFest.

Seth’s Bio:

Seth Zurer’s first bacon memory was the sweaty leathern slabs of salt that he ate by the handful at the Roy Rogers breakfast bar with his dad on the three-times-a-year all-you-can-eat adventures that he was occasionally treated to between the ages of 6 and 8. They weren’t good. The sausage links were better. But they were there. And those chewy rashers laid a solid foundation of cured pork in his heart and and a first layer of cholesterol in his veins. Since then, he’s been deeply committed to the illicit pleasure of cured meat, in all of its forms, and deeply in love with bacon.

Andre’s Bio:

Andre Vonbaconvitch has been eating bacon since he can remember. However it wasn’t until 2001, when an old roommate got a job as a waiter at an upscale eatery, that he first saw the light. One night, said roommate brought home a package of thick sliced non-oscar-meyer, pepper-crusted gourmet bacon and insisted they *bake* (not fry) some right then and there.

Upon first contact, Andre’s eyes opened as if he’d just taken his first toke of the wackiest tabaccey. He saw angels. He saw dancing unicorns. He felt for the first time the pure rush of glandular fluids to the mouth – the pleasure, the pain… the pleasure, the pain…! The Faure Requiem was soaring in his internal ears as he vowed: “Never again will I eat crappy bacon!” (Cue THUNDER!)

Ok, well that oath didn’t last very long, but he still loves the good stuff and seeks it out at every opportunity. Mr. Vonbaconvitch is a proud cofounder of BaconFest Chicago and is credited with authoring the slogan “BaconFest! – It’s the Burning Man of Bacon!”

Michael’s Bio:

Michael Griggs first remembers tasting the delicious pork belly in a homemade BLT. Mom used the thick sliced organic stuff and WOW was he hooked. Since then, he’s toyed around with all the various incarnations of cured and smoked meats as well as anything and everything involving bacon. The earliest of these delicacies was the ubiquitous bacon wrapped date, but man oh man does it get better from there. Bacon chocolate, bacon vodka, bacon cupcakes, are all on the list of new and meaty things to try. Here’s to celebrating all things b-a-c-o-n!