We're not fakin', we love bacon

I am here today to quash an insidious rumor that has spread throughout the worlds both of those who cook and those who eat:

No, bacon does not make everything better. Not everything.

Sure, it is unbeatable on toast with lettuce and tomato or sitting proudly in melted cheddar cheese on top of a hamburger. Wrapped around a scallop? Delicious. Wrapped around a filet mignon? Even better.

But let's face it, no one is ever going to make a bacon-flavored toothpaste. Right?

This just in: A company called Accoutrements is now making bacon-flavored toothpaste.

(Incidentally, if you have brushed your teeth with bacon-flavored toothpaste and you want to get rid of that flavor, you can brush your teeth again with toothpaste that tastes like cupcakes or pickles, made by the same company. Or you can just pop a couple of Uncle Oinker's Savory Bacon Mints, which combine the smoky taste of bacon with just a hint of mint.)

Bacon has become more than a mere flavoring agent, it has become something of a nationwide fetish.

Yes, you can buy bacon-flavored dental floss, wear bacon-shaped bandages, and breathe air scented by bacon-scented air fresheners. But those are (one hopes) gag gifts.

More serious is bacon vodka, which is used to make bakon martinis (so spelled because they use Bakon brand vodka) with olives stuffed with blue cheese. The Bakon Vodka people also push it for use in Bloody Marys, and they also recommend it for chocolate martinis.

Bacophile chefs have been combining bacon with chocolate for the last few years, enthusing about how the smokiness of the bacon enhances the rich flavor of the chocolate. That may work great in theory, but … no thank you. Some things are sacred. Some things should not be messed with. And I'm not talking about the bacon.

And then there is bacon ice cream, which is surprisingly popular -- or at least surprisingly available. A lot of restaurants serve it and ice cream parlors sell it, but how many people actually eat it? Not me. Bacon ice cream seems to me like the anti-Reese's. Two great tastes, sure. But you want to keep them as far apart as possible.

A company called J&D's (their motto is "Everything should taste like bacon") has come out with bacon-flavored salt, bacon-flavored popcorn, bacon-flavored ranch dressing, and bacon-flavored mayonnaise, which admittedly would be pretty great on, say, a turkey sandwich. They also have bacon-flavored envelopes. You know the part of the envelope that you lick? Yup. Bacon.

The funniest part about the J&D products is that they are all kosher ("Yes, there are rabbis out there with enough chutzpah to certify our products as kosher," they say). In other words, no pigs were harmed in the making of their bacon-flavored mayonnaise -- which, if you need to know about such things, is considered dairy.

Like so many things wrong with the world today, the baconification of America seemed to have begun with television. First it was the Two Fat Ladies, who used to layer every pot with bacon (admittedly they were English, but their show came to be popular in this country too). Then the Food Network chefs realized their crowds would cheer ecstatically whenever they used it, so naturally they started using it more and more. It became like a club, the Bacon-Lovers Club, where the members would whisper to each other about how which chefs used it to make which dishes.

So now we have bacon-flavored toothpicks and bacon-flavored lip balm. We have bacon-scented candles, bacon coffee, and bacon-flavored soft drinks. You can eat bacon cupcakes and bacon doughnuts, and if you ever find yourself in Snook, Texas, you can order up a plate of chicken-fried bacon.

If you go to a diner now and order some eggs with a couple of strips of regular old bacon, the waitress might look at you like you're crazy.

Contact Daniel Neman at dneman@theblade.com or 419-724-6155.