Did you know the phrase “bringing home the bacon” dates back to the 12th century? Or that “the bacon” in question was, in fact, a real reward given to English husbands of the town of Dunmow who kept their vow of ensuring domestic peace? I didn’t either.
Inspiration for “Then and Now” each week can come from many different places. Sometimes, it’s politics. Sometimes, it’s the news du jour. Other times, it’s an emerging story with obvious parallels to a moment in history (pandemics, anyone?). This week, I was drawn to learn something about the history of bacon thanks to the questionable decision of Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin’ Donuts) to begin selling bags of bacon. Not just any old bags of bacon, mind you, but “Sweet Pepper Snackin’ Bacon,” apparently designed specifically for a midday snack.
And it is a surprisingly rich history dating back thousands of years. Long before bacon became a faddish lifestyle statement, it was, of course, a simple food staple. The Chinese, circa 1500 B.C., were known to create an early iteration of bacon by curing pork bellies with salt. Both the ancient Greeks and Romans had methods of primitive bacon production.
The word “bacon” itself comes to us from the late Middle Ages, spelled then as “bacoun.” But other etymological origins exist as well. According to the research page of the English Breakfast Society’s website, “In Old High German they called it bahho, which is derived from the Proto Germanic bakkon, in Old Dutch they called it baken and in Old French they called it bacun.” Until late into the 16th century, “bacoun” typically referred to all pork in general; not until the 17th century did the term come to mean exclusively the fried strips we think of today.
Pigs crossed the Atlantic decades before the Mayflower settlers did, and bacon has long had a place in American life. Bacon-making is included in Mary Randolph’s 1824 cookbook, The Virginia Housewife, which is regarded as one of America’s earliest cookbooks. During World War II, bacon even played a double role in supporting the war effort. After cooking bacon, which became a favorite meat for cash-strapped families during rationing, American consumers would return the leftover grease back to their butchers, who in turn donated the bacon fat to the military. Bacon fat and grease, as all breakfast eaters know, is highly flammable. As such, it was used during the war as a component in explosives and incendiary devices (just as it was in ancient times).
Talk about a snack attack.
