Category:Iron Chef SA 007: Bacon

And this round's theme ingredient is:

BACON!!

Though I've recently been dabbling in vegetarianism myself and my family background is Jewish, I recognize bacon as being one of the greatest things on the planet. Not only is it just good, but bacon fat is one of the best things you can have in your kitchen. It cooks at high temperatures, lends its own special flavor to anything it touches and protects in ways other oils can't.

And there's a lot to know in the world of bacon. Bacon, believe it or not, has a terroir. (Wine snob's term for the regional conditions that present themselves in subtle ways). Bacon from different parts of the world tastes, smells and cooks differently. Furthermore, there are different smoking and curing methods. And let's not forget that what your bacon ate before it became bacon makes all the difference.

So let's get out there and explore bacon. Get to your local butcher shop or deli and see what they carry. Order Internet Bacon! Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!

The Rules:

I'm not going to say pork only. There's beef and turkey bacon and there's veggie bacon too if you're so enterprising. In fact, if you can pull off a bacon themed dish from veggie bacon, you'll become my hero and I'll send you a personalized video of myself singing that horrid song by Bette Middler.

As an encouragement to get you to get ingredients that can't be found in the supermarket, I'm giving you almost all of February. You can start submitting entries on Feb 6th. We'll close off submissions on Friday, Feb 24th at midnight Pacific time. That'll only give a couple of days for voting, but if you cook it, they will come.

I'm not going to put any limitations on the number of dishes you create, but you do have to incorporate the theme ingredient in to all of them. But for the sake of the voters, try to keep it under 3.

One other request: if you go out of your way and get some kind of fancy bacon, please tell us all about it in your thread.

Good luck!

Edit: Prizes!

First place gets a forum upgrade of their choice or an AwfulMart item valued less than $30 USD.

Second Place, if within 10% of the votes of first gets a forum upgrade.

Contestants so far:

   * squirrellypoo
   * magnetic
   * Plexiwatt
   * divine_aphrael
   * CubanRefugee
   * Smoked Salmon
   * Devious Swan
   * Redbeard
   * Accipiter
   * NosmoKing
   * tdicola
   * Aquila
   * ReverendHammer
   * sabros
   * TotallyUnoriginal
   * kiteless
   * GodsMullet
   * Mindphlux
   * glasyalabolas
   * Big Alf
   * Aery
   * Homerio
   * Anthropogentric
   * Mr_Smashy
   * Insparkle
   * Rasheed