I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "I don't really like bacon that much."
Some don't eat it for health or religious reasons. But even many vegetarians waver at the sight of a strip of fatty pork belly.
In his new book, "Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon," Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman's, said he meets one or two former vegetarians a week who have a strong attraction to bacon. He calls them baco-tarians.
The combination of smoke, salt and fat in a strip of bacon turns it into a magic wand that has power over people and even cultures. Weinzweig, whose Ann Arbor deli has turned into a multi-million-dollar business championing good food, said bacon is to North America what olive oil is to the Mediterranean. "In studying traditional American cooking it's increasingly clear to me that bacon could be our single most historically important ingredient," he writes.
Weinzweig's book digs into the history and making of great bacon. He sought out the artisans who make specialty bacon and writes about more than a dozen of them. He explains dry-curing, or rubbing the meat with salt, sugar and preservatives, and wet-curing, which is using similar ingredients, but using water to get them into the meat. He explains the difference between bacon as we know it and Canadian and Irish bacon, which both come from the loin.
The book is a love letter to and about bacon. It didn't make me love bacon more. It helped me know more about why I do.
As I was reading the book, several pigs raised by Blair Thompson on Hoke Farm in Goshen were ready for butchering. After a steady diet of fruits, vegetables and even meat, the 375-pound pig we bought half of went to Martin's Processing in Wakarusa for butchering. We got about 10 pounds of bacon, 15 pounds of lard, and a lot of chops and roasts from our healthy pig.
To know where the pig was raised and be able to ask the farmer what it ate is much more enjoyable than buying a pound of Oscar Meyer at the grocery store.
Even if you don't have a pig lined up to get you through the winter, Elkhart County has a bevy of butcher shops selling bacon, not to mention other meats. Five local shops make their own bacon and three others get it from nearby or make another version of bacon.
Martin's Processing injects and dry-rubs pork with a cure before smoking it from smoldering hickory sawdust. Most of the pork the shop uses is raised in Elkhart County, according to co-owner Daryl Oberholtzer. "We actually cure it and smoke it right here," he said.
John's Butcher Shop in Nappanee and Old Hoosier Meats in Middlebury use a dry-cure before smoking. The result is a meaty bacon that doesn't shrink like some commercial bacons. "Just good stuff," said Randy Grewe, owner of Old Hoosier, which sells as much as 70 pounds a week of bacon. Dana J's in Goshen dry-cures the bacon and smokes it over applewood from Kercher's Sunrise Orchard on the south side of town, according to owner Dana Gall.
DC Meats in Osceola, right on the Elkhart County border, makes five kinds of bacon, according to co-owner Stephen Gill. The conventional bacon is dry-cured for three days and then smoked, but the shop also sells peppered, beef, Canadian and a signature bacon has the loin and belly together. "I eat bacon every Sunday morning," he said.
Mattern's in Goshen makes Canadian bacon, which is essentially a cured pork chop, but imports its good-quality bacon.
Charlie's Butcher Block in Elkhart sells Mishler's bacon from LaGrange. (Yoder's Butcher Shoppe in Shipshewana also makes bacon.)
Hickory Meats & More in Elkhart, the county's newest butcher shop and bulk foods store, gets in slab bacon and smokes it again before slicing it thick. The result is a hunk of meat that's less fatty and has wonderful flavor, but doesn't get really crisp.
The locally made bacons range from $2.89 a pound (John's in Nappanee) to more than $5 a pound at Charlie's. Most are $3 to $4 a pound. It's worth trying any of these bacons rather than the cheap grocery store bacon. The meat and fat are full of flavor, and buying them supports local businesses.
Grewe said a Michigan restaurant buys about 20 pounds of bacon a week from him for a Sunday buffet. I wish more Elkhart County restaurants would buy locally made bacon.
While Weinzweig focused on bacon makers elsewhere, Elkhart County is stocked with good bacon. Is there fat? Yep. Is there salt and cure? Yep. Will it kill you? Probably not unless you eat a pound a day.
You can avoid bacon if you want to. Frankly, I don't want to live without the occasional joy found in bacon.
Weinzweig's book, "Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon," which includes 42 recipes, is available for $29.99 from * A recent mention of McCarthy's on the Riverwalk didn't have the correct hours. Co-owner Tom Borger Sr. clarified that the kitchen is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday and food is available as late as 11 p.m., he said. For more information, see www.mccarthysontheriverwalk.com.
* People are invited to participate in a live Webcast called "Understanding and Entertaining with Artisan Cheese" from 3 to 4 p.m. Thursday at www.liveartisancheesechat.com. Cooking demos and giveaways will be part of the event, according to spokeswoman Carrie Becker.