The good, the bad, the bacon

Really enjoyed the bacon article (“Did Somebody Say Bacon?,” Dec. 3). I recall reading about one of Washington, D.C.’s elite journalist power couples back in the ‘50s serving just fried bacon slices at their so chi-chi cocktail parties. Try some bacon from Clifty Farm ( www.cliftyfarm.com). They sell country hams, and their thick-cut bacon has a distinct country ham cure to it.

Tom Hill

Nipomo

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Your entertaining story includes recipes that might have been more appropriate during the Eisenhower administration. Once again, recipes that have little regard for the average gourmand. Every week includes ingredients of heavy cream, vast tubs of butter and now enough bacon fat to make even a piglet cringe. Please, send some lighter fare your readers’ way.

E.J. Oshins

Studio City

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This may seem a bit twisted, but my wife and I have an agreement that if I can make it to 50, I get a bacon pinata! This started a few years ago when our daughter was at a birthday party and the kids were whacking yet another helpless candy pinata. Watching the glee with which the children were applying such crushing blows got me to thinking . . . if I were to have a pinata as an adult, what delightful bounty would encourage such reckless violent abandon? Only one food group would send me back to the thrills of childhood . . . bacon. That day, the dream of the bacon pinata was born.

Jeff Bevier

Anchorage, Alaska

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In times of environmental and human health crises, it is outrageous that you shamelessly promote the consumption of bacon. A 2006 U.N. report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes and ships in the world combined. The consumption of animal products has been conclusively linked with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and osteoporosis. The rate of colon cancer is highest in regions where meat consumption is high and lowest where meat eating is uncommon. A similar pattern is evident for breast, cervical, uterine, ovarian, prostate and lung cancers. Instead of listening to your hedonistic prattle, we should follow Albert Einstein’s wise advice, “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

Barbara Biel

Bristol, Conn.

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We recently tried a recipe called Bacon Porn. It was thick bacon dredged in chicken fried steak batter and deep fried. A simply amazing experience.

Ian Smith

Aliso Viejo