I used to love spending the night at my friend’s homes. My favorite part was always breakfast. Every morning I would wake up to the sizzle of bacon. My friends’ moms soon caught on about my love for bacon and would always buy extra, just for me.
I don’t like ham, and sausage is OK, but there is something about bacon that I have a hard time believing that it breaks all Kosherat laws.
Keeping Kosher means observing the dietary commandments of God. One of them means you can not eat animals with split hooves. Back then, it had to do with health issues. Pigs were considered dirty.
My mom grew up in a Kosher house, and my dad’s home was pretty strict as well. In my home, my dad did not want bacon around. However, my mom is another bacon addict. Whenever my dad would go out of town, she would sneak bacon (and shrimp) into the home and we would sneak a guilty pleasure.
We do not keep bacon in the house (except on special occasions). My husband converted to Judaism but is a little stricter then I am in that area. However, when we go out to a restaurant, he’ll order bacon just as easily as I do.
Interestingly enough, bacon is a favorite food of many Jews. For fun, I did a search on “Jews” and “Bacon” and pulled up a ton of websites! One website sells t-shirts announcing “Jews for Bacon.” Another shows off a logo of a Jewish star made of bacon.
Of course bacon does not have to be made from pork. You can get Kosher bacon made for beef (we always called it beefinate) or turkey bacon. However, there is nothing like the one we shouldn’t have.
Is it a guilty pleasure or was it passed down from when the Jews came to the states?
I read in Gene Wilder’s book “Kiss Me Like a Stranger” that his dad loved bacon too. When Gene asked his dad why Jews could eat bacon and spareribs, but not pork chops and ham his father told him that when they came to the states his mom did not know English that well and did not understand what bacon and ribs were. Therefore she did not realize it came from a pig.
Works for me. I’ve never thought of bacon as pork anyway. It fit more into it’s own category.