One of the most famous festivals is the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Iowa, which is the top pork-producing state in the U.S., carries 29 percent of the U.S. market share and has six times the number of pigs as people. Now in its sixth year, the festival has grown from a small gathering of bacon-loving friends at a cabin in northwest Iowa to a mega-festival: More than 10,000 bacon enthusiasts are expected to attend the next one in April 2013 and consume more than 12,000 pounds of bacon!
I suppose it was just a matter of time before America’s growing love/obsession with bacon crossed this Rubicon: bacon tourism. What other possible reason could one have for going to Iowa, right?
Think about it; 10 different types of bacon. Bacon meatballs. Bacon sausage. Bacon doughnuts. Bacon butterscotch cupcakes? Yeah, I know; it sucks having high cholesterol…not that I’d let it stop me, of course. Then there’s the bacon lecture, the bacon song contest, and (but of course) the bacon eating contest. And did you know that the preferred way to cook bacon is naked? Yeah, but that’s another story for another time….
And you wonder why Americans waistlines are expanding like the national debt?
If this hasn’t convinced you to include bacon in your Memorial Day feast…I have one last thing to persuade you: bacon-wrapped tater tots. If that doesn’t do it for you, you could always go to Iceland for the bacon-wrapped whale.
Now you finally have a reason to go to Iowa, eh?
