So earlier today I saw an abomination on Facebook. It was a picture that was shared from VeganStreet.com that was talking about vegan bacon:
I was feeling masochistic so I decided to go look up some of these recipes and although there are some variances the recipes are basically the same: Soy sauce (or aminos) for some saltiness, some sort of sweetener (usually a syrup of some sort), and some liquid smoke. So that kind of satisfies most of the flavor elements most people look for in bacon.
But could any of these really be considered “bacon”? Of course not. Could I take a sausage and start calling it a “meat carrot”? No way, a sausage isn’t a carrot. Could I call a nice ribeye a piece of “beef lettuce”? That is ridiculous. So why are these people calling this stuff bacon? Call it salted, smokey zucchini. But don’t call it bacon.
Even if you look at the word “bacon” from an etymological perspective it is a word first used around the 14th century and means “”meat from the back and sides of a pig” (originally either fresh or cured, but especially cured), from Old French bacon, from Proto-Germanic *bakkon “back meat” (cognates: Old High German bahho, Old Dutch baken “bacon”). from the Online Etymology Dictionary. And from another source: “From Middle English bacon (“meat from the back and sides of a pig”), from Anglo-Norman bacon, bacun (“ham, flitch, strip of lard”), from Old Low Frankish *bakō (“ham, flitch”), from Proto-Germanic *bakô, *bakkô(“back”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhAg- (“back, buttocks”). Cognate with Old High German bahho, bacho (“back, ham, side of bacon”) (compare Alemannic German Bache, Bachen), Old Saxon baco (“back”),Dutch bake (“side of bacon, ham”), Old English bæc (“back”).
So the word “bacon” doesn’t just refer to any sort of salted, smokey product. It is meat and to be more specific it is from a pig. To refute the image from VeganStreet, yes, bacon SHOULD and DOES come from a pig. And while we are at it, take that “turkey bacon” and throw that away with all this so called “vegan bacon”.
I don’t know, maybe some of that “vegan bacon” might taste OK and there might be some decent applications for it but don’t try to sell it as an alternative to bacon.
Do yourself a favor, go fry up a few strips of real bacon right now and remind yourself what goodness is. And if you want to treat yourself try the Kurobata bacon from Snake River Farms. It is on sale right now for $20 and you can get free shipping with code FREEAFF.
