Well, I don’t read many books here at the Republic of Bacon – I’m too busy eating bacon! – but there’s a book that’s recently caught my eye. It’s Bacon: A Love Story. Written by Heather Lauer, the creator of Bacon Unwrapped, this book gives you a crash course on everything bacon-related. No surprise here: I loved it! But all of the mouthwatering details follow after the jump.

The Origin of Bacon: A Love Story

As I previously mentioned, Heather Lauer started Bacon Unwrapped on a whim after a drunken night of brainstorming with her brothers. That was over five years ago. About two years ago, she felt that she needed to start writing a book about what she calls “the Bacon Nation” (I think she means the Republic of Bacon). The Bacon Nation is all those folks out there who love bacon as much as you and I. To do this, she decided to travel across America to taste the many different types of bacon and bacon dishes. It’s the story of these people who makes her book, in Lauer’s opinion, a success: “There are millions of us around the world who are united in our love for bacon, and if you are one of those people, then you will likely relate to – and be entertained by – the bacon love stories I tell in the book.”

From the Birth of Bacon to Bacon Explosions

Bacon: A Love Story is broken up into two parts. The first section is about the history of bacon and all of its amazingness. Lauer talks about how bacon first developed in Europe, and how the British jazzed up the industry in the late 18th century. She explains how bacon can be cured, and the different flavours that occur when you use different cuts of pig. And she also gives some idea of how best to cook bacon (there’s even a passage on the little known method of “blanching”). It’s all very thorough and authoritative: if you want to impress your friends with a lot of bacon facts, this is worth the price for you.

In the second half, she gets into the fun stuff. Lauer talks about her favourite bacon blogs – some of which are still around (such as Mr Baconpants and BaconToday). This is the section where she gets into the idea of the crazy stuff you can do with bacon, including all of the many ways of wrapping bacon around various things. They are so great, I’m going to profile some of her ideas in a future blog post. In fact, aside from profiles of various bacon-fans, this part of the book is chock full of bacon recipes. Since we are all looking for ways to cram more bacon into our diets, I highly recommend this book just for that.

The Five Cent Review

Overall, Lauer is a funny author who never gets bogged down with her facts. She has a real and infectious love for bacon. I give Bacon: A Love Story four out of five strips of bacon. I don’t want to give it a perfect score – that’s going to be saved for my book, when (and if) it comes out!

Bacon: A Love Story is not just a great book, it’s a perfect gift for all of your hard-to-shop-for friends. Trust me, they’ll love it. I mean, the only reason they wouldn’t is if they didn’t like bacon. And why would you want to be friends with someone like that?

You can order Bacon: A Love Story from Amazon.ca.