June 19, 2010, Saturday 9am to 3pm

Zingerman’s Southside 3756 Plaza Drive Ann Arbor, MI 48108

Saturday morning the more intellectual and culinary end of the Camp Bacon conclave kicks into action. From the pork world, we’ve got Allan Benton, award winning, traditional bacon-maker from eastern Tennessee and English ex-pat Nick Spencer, who’s making old style dry cured British-style back bacon in his new home in Chicago. They will demonstrate their curing methods to the assembled campers. Herb Eckhouse, who’s curing traditional pancetta, guanciale and other outstanding pork in Iowa, will lead a hands-on pancetta-curing class. Sharon Meehan, the woman who helped bring the amazing Ozark Mountain Trails Peppered Bacon out of the hills of central Arkansas will join us along with Megan Dorsch from our good friends Nueske’s in Wisconsin.

For the big picture on bacon, Ari will be taking campers through an overview of bacon history and a guided tasting of ten different bacons. Jan Longone, curator of the world-renowned Longone Center for Culinary Research at the University of Michigan’s Clements Library will lead us through a look at bacon through the culinary ages in cookbooks and American culinary ephemera. For some hands on cooking, Molly Stevens, author of the James Beard award winning book, All About Braising, will demonstrate a couple of special bacon recipes. We’ll also have games and bacon based poetry from local poets Lucy Carnaghi and Ian Mays.

Add in bacon-based breakfast and lunch from the various Zingerman’s businesses, a signed copy of Ari’s book, a Camp Bacon t-shirt, and assorted other treats and… it really is the Davos of Bacon.

And that’s just the beginning! Tickets are $150 for this all day event and you can reserve them here.

Free Bacon Street Party and Marketplace, Sat, June 19, 3-5pm

At 3pm Camp Bacon turns into a bacon street fair. The event will serve as a fundraiser for the local 4-H. There’s no charge to attend but Zingerman’s will donate a dollar for every attendee, and attendees will be encouraged to make a $5 donation to help fund the 4-H program in Washtenaw County, helping teach local kids about responsible agriculture, high quality hog raising, etc. The street fair will include tastes of bacon from some of America’s best—Nueske’s, Benton’s, La Quercia, Ozark Mountain Trails and more. There’ll also be tastes of bacon-cheddar scones, bacon-apple coffee cake, peppered bacon farm bread and other bacon based baked goods from Zingerman’s Bakehouse; bacon based games for kids, book signings by Sarah Katherine Lewis, Molly Stevens, Ari Weinzweig and more!