Hate to break it to ya, bacon is bacon, it can only come from a pig. Yes, there are chefs making lamb bacon and veal bacon, all good and interesting, but let’s split us some hairs here. Those cured, smoked slabs of otherness technically aren’t bacon. These dopplegangers come from the same anatomical parts as the pig part that gives us bacon…but they’re not bacon. The part in question is the belly, or side, of a pig. Salted, cured, dried and smoked.
Turkeys don’t have bellies, or sides to salt and cure. Calling turkey bacon “bacon” is like calling “coffee-whitening-powder” cream. It’s not just Foodiness, it’s Franken-Foodiness, made by evil men in lab coats, stitching together bits and pieces of one creature with another creature to create a monster.
Back when I went to Art College, we tossed around a lot of fancypants words like Simulacra, which is defined as an inferior impersonation or impression of something else. Like the Venetian Hotel in Vegas, vs. Venice, or Imitation Crabstix vs. Real Crab. Simulacra, it’s a good one to throw around at a party. (But be careful with simulacrum – it sounds a little dirty.) Turkey Bacon is Foodiness Simulacra. Designed to give you an approximate bacon experience, but with a “health-halo”, Orwellian double-think to make you buy and eat something you think is better, but is really much, much worse.
When it comes to Franken-foodiness, getting real is pretty easy, because all you have to do is not buy the Franken-foodiness products and instead by the real thing. So buy cheese, not soy cheese; or put milk or cream in your coffee, not creamer powder (which also sounds a little dirty). If you want blueberry pie eat blue berry pie, not blueberry pie flavored sugar free yogurt. And if you want bacon, just eat the damn bacon!