Zingerman’s Camp Bacon Features Bacon Makers, cookbook authors and samples
Detroit Free Press, June 23, 2011
The famously charismatic Paul Kiry proudly displays his mug and the food of the hour, bacon, on this awesome Free Press feature about Camp Bacon. There’s never enough bacon to satisfy those with a passion for the pig. But even the most hard-core enthusiasts might come close at Zingerman’s second annual Camp Bacon in Ann Arbor from June 30 through July 3. Even though the dinner being help at the Roadhouse is sold out, you can still attend the main event on July second to taste all the fried pig your bacon loving heart desires!

A2 Bacon
The Ann Arbor Chronicle, June 17, 2011
Ari reviews bacon from Herb Eckhouse and La Quercia in Iowa: “Having done a fair bit of research over the years while writing ‘Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon,’ I can tell you that a lot of the old sources list the Tamworths as hogs that were bred specifically to have their pork cured up into bacon. Herb told me pretty much what other sources have said as well – the belly meat from the Tamworth is supposed to be particularly tender. It’s also known for having a near-perfect balance of fat and lean, and its flavor gets particularly sweet during the maturing.”

Not all Camps are Just for Kids
Orlando Sentinel, June 7, 2011
It’s summer time and that means the kiddos are heading off to camp, but this camp is for grown-ups! Among those camps is the Zingerman’s Camp Bacon! Don’t forget to check it out June 30-July 3rd!

Camp Bacon Gives Midwest A Slice of Culinary Trend
Changing Gears, June 3, 2011A nod to bacon, Ari’s bacon book and camp bacon. From June 30 to July 3, Zingerman’s will host the second annual Camp Bacon, a four-day bacon conference in Ann Arbor that includes seminars on bacon history, the creations of two James Beard award-winning chefs, a benefit concert at The Ark and, of course, lots of good eats. See you all at camp!

Planning for Camp Bacon 2011 has begun!

We’ve got dates – Thursday, June 30th – Sunday, July 3rd with Saturday, July 2nd as our main full day event.

The line up is already sizzling:

Andrea Reusing, James Beard nominated chef of Lantern Restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC.

John T. Edge, director of Southern Foodways Alliance and member of James Beard’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America

Allan Benton, bacon maker extraordinaire

Brian Polcyn, Chef, restaurateur and co-author of the best selling book, Charcuterie

and more ….

- Gauri Thergaonkar

Director, Camp Bacon 2011

Allan Benton talks to the crowd about "making bacon the way my grandparents did."

If you’re wondering whether the bacon craze will ever fade, after a day eating and learning about the food at Zingerman’s Camp Bacon, I’d say the answer is “no.” Well, maybe that’s not entirely accurate. A better answer is that though bacon may be getting a lot of hype these days, there’s a deeper current of interest running underneath all the mainstream press that bacon is getting. I think this feature in the Washington Post got it exactly right.

Take Keith and Angie Ewing from Texas. When we announced that we were bringing some of the best people in the cured pork world together in Ann Arbor for Camp Bacon, they decided to make the long drive to Michigan for the chance to share a meal and learn the business of bacon from the likes of Allan Benton, Herb Eckhouse (who guided guests through a hands-on pancetta curing class) and all the other amazing people who joined us throughout the day. I don’t think a fad inspires that kind of devotion. We also welcomed Katie Voigt, the youngest camper but no less engaged than the folks around the table with her. This event was, in equal parts, about the food and about the people there (guests and presenters and staff). Allan Benton, maker of Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams (along with one of the most highly regarded bacon’s in the country), spoke about his childhood in Tennessee and the experience of growing up in a very poor household where most of the food was raised (and, in the case of pork, cured) on the property. Early on in his professional life as a curer, Allan was struggling to compete with larger operations that sacrificed taste for efficiency and profit. He told his father he was thinking of cutting some corners to make himself more competitive, and his father cautioned him against it. “When you play the other man’s game, you always lose. Stick with what you know.” Allan did, and everyone who loves the taste of bacon (and ham) they way it was made on his parents’ and his grandparents’ farm is the better for it.

Molly Stevens runs us through Spaghetti alla Carbonara and Spring Vegetables with Braised Slab Bacon (from her book "All About Braising")

If you think you can’t cook, you owe it to yourself to see Molly Stevens run a cooking class. There’s no pretense and there are no tricks but there is a lot of food flying (it was nice to know that being perfectly prim and neat like they are on a lot of the television cooking shows isn’t a prerequisite for preparing great food). And, Molly gets beyond the recipe to tell you what she’s really doing. “In most cookbooks, there are mistakes in about 80% of the recipes. If you can understand what the recipe is trying to tell you to do instead of just doing exactly what it says, you can spot the recipe’s errors before you make them.” If book sales are a testament to her skill as a teacher then she’s flat out amazing. Guests scooped up 20 copies of her James Beard Award-winning book All About Braising before we were even done with lunch.

Sharon and Meghan Meehan from Ham I Am shared their moving story about a young woman trying to get a loan to start a small business selling the hams she grew up loving. Nick Spencer came from Chicago to share a hilarious dissection of the differences between British and American attitudes towards bacon (and beer and sports and a lot of other things) and Meghan Dorsch’s came from Nueske’s to describe the life-changing career choice she faced as a young woman (go to work for Nueske’s or get a job on a ginseng farm).

Zingerman's co-founder Ari Weinzweig with Andre Williams and his keyboard player Kenn Goodman

But the day wasn’t just bacon curing. We met Meg Noori who read pork-inspired poetry (hers Ojibwe by the way) along with Ian Mays and Tung-hui Hu. We heard a talk on bacon history from the distinguished Jan Longone at the Longone Culinary Archive at the UM Library and Ari’s own story of growing up to live bacon after a childhood in a kosher home. We also enjoyed a surprise visit from Andre Williams fresh off his gig at the Roadhouse the night before. He regaled the crowd with the story of his 1957 hit “Bacon Fat.”  In all, the presentations were heartfelt and, more importantly, made it clear what goes into bacon making and business building when it’s done by folks who really love what they do and really want the food they make to taste good.

So, yes, bacon might a flash in the pan in some circles but not with this crowd. For the folks at Camp Bacon, who had the chance to taste great bacons with the people who make and to hear the stories of how those bacons came to be, bacon is pretty clearly a culinary touchstone and not the latest thing they’re “into,” to be discarded when the next trend comes along. As Ari mentioned in his opening remarks, the aim of the day was to help elevate bacon to it’s rightful status. People might say they “like bacon” but they don’t just say the “like wine.” They’re partial to Pinots or big on Bordeaux. So, with the first annual Camp Bacon in the books, we’re hoping guests go home and say “I like Nueske’s with my eggs but Benton’s to season my vegetables and Arkansas Long Pepper on a BLT.”

We’re already making plans for next year. Anyone up for a pig roast?

A few weeks back, getting ready for Camp Bacon, I had a chance to talk to Andre Williams by phone. It was right about the same time that Paul was in DC to go the White House—although I wasn’t as nervous as I’d have been if I were going to Washington, I was probably equally excited. For me, it is really the “small” but significant figures of life that I get more excited about than the big headliners. The ones who make small but meaningful little marks on history by doing what most folks never even realize happened, that are willing to get out of the box of day to day mainstream living to do something special. Having spent literally 18 months trying to track the guy down while I was writing the bacon book, I was pretty excited when we finally hooked up with him AND found out the weekend we’d picked for Camp Bacon was going to work for his schedule.

While he’s hardly world famous, Andre Williams is definitely one of those one of a kind creative folks who make their mark. He was basically doing rap before there was rap. And he stuck his neck out by writing and recording racy songs like “Bacon Fat,” “Greasy Chicken” and “Jail Bait” back when American society wasn’t used to watching pseudo-near-sex on network television. And since he’s 75, it’s all the more special that we get the chance to have him here, live at the Roadhouse. Andre will be up here in person in a couple weeks to kick off Camp Bacon by playing live at the Roadhouse Friday night June 18. Anyways, I’m sure he’ll have more to say (and sing) when he’s here, but below are a few quick notes from my Conversation with Andre.

Ari: Well, for this audience, Bacon Fat is the obvious connection. What’s the story behind the song?

Andre: “What happened was, when I was young, I just started venturing off into this entertainment thing that I’m still into. And one of the boys in my group, lived in Memphis, and he got the group invited to audition for the Flamingo Lounge. That was where all the black entertainers were auditioned. We were the opening act for a blues singer.

While we were driving down there in the car, I had this ham and bacon sandwich and we saw some cotton pickers and at the time we were maybe a hundred miles out from Memphis. And then meetin’ a disc jockey down there and he got us an audition down there and that got us going with the song.”

Ari: Well, that’s pretty much the story in the song! What happened then?

Andre: “When I brought the idea back to Detroit. Miss (Devora) Brown (owner of Fortune Records) didn’t like the idea at all, this talkin’ stuff . . . She said ‘Records are for singin’’. And she said ‘Stories are stories.” But it just happened that Ernie Dunn who was the #1 night time DJ in Detroit back then was in the studio with Miss Brown and he heard me talking about “Bacon Fat,” and he told Miss Brown, ‘If you can record it, I’ll play it!’ At that time unless you were payin’ big payola you never got on the radio, so when he said that . .. . that was all she needed to hear.”

We recorded the song about 30 times. You record it, and then keep recordin’, keep recordin’, keep recordin’ til we got it. We did in 1956 goin’ into 1957. It’s right around my birthday. In the fall .. .. my birthday is November 1.

Ari: “Mine is November 3”

Andre: “So we’re both Scorpions.” (he laughs out loud) “Yep. All of these things happen to us Scorpios but we manage to scathe through it.

Ari: Where did you grow up?

Andre: I’m from Alabama. That was the 1930s and 40s. Down there then all there was food and work, and country and western songs. That was the music I grew up on. I wasn’t even aware of rhythm and blues . . . my grandparents were sharecroppers and all we heard was the music coming from the guy who owned the plantation coming out of his radio listening to this music and that’s the music we cut our teeth on. (Check out Andre’s country and western album, “Red Dirt,” recorded with the Sadies)

And then I went from there to Chicago. Right now I’m at 71st and Exchange on the South Side.

Ari: “When I was little we lived at 71st and Crandon (a little bit east of where Andre lives now).

Andre: In Chicago, that’s where I turned bad. I don’t know. Now that I look back on it I don’t regret it. There’s a lot of things I wouldn’t do again but I don’t regret it. But I don’t wanna go through ‘em gain.

Ari: I can relate to that.

Andre: “Welcome to the club. Welcome to the club! That is my definite forte. I don’t like slow days. That’s my forte. Never, never retire! When I retire. They’ll be rolling me out. What I’m gonna retire for? I was born retired. Welcome to the club. You know, I have to have my own space. The more the merrier. I got a few kids that like the old man. That keeps me alive. It never grows old. Depends on your taste. But it never grows old for me. You can always add a little salt to the pepper.

An Introduction to SFA Films from Southern Foodways on Vimeo.

Joe York, who has created numerous films with the Southern Foodways Alliance, will be on hand at Zingerman’s Camp Bacon on June 19 to shoot some footage of the festivities as he works on his latest documentary of American culinary traditions.

Joe has documented some of the most interesting traditional foodways, people and places around country and you can watch many of his films here. Here’s what Joe had to say about the project: “The SFA and the University of Mississippi Media & Documentary Projects has embarked on a year-long visual census of southern food. This year we’re hitting the road and heading to every southern state, documenting the foodways that, as much or more than anything else, define this diverse region. In the end, we’ll edit all it all together into a feature-length documentary we’re cleverly calling “Southern Food: The Movie”. But we understand that the South simply isn’t big enough or selfish enough to keep these dishes to itself. So while we’ll focus our lenses mainly here at home, we’re also headed north and west to see how southern food has left its mark on the rest of the nation. When we heard that a bunch of folks were getting together in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for something called Camp Bacon, we knew there was no way we’d miss it. ”

We are so excited and honored to have him as part of this event!

Join us for all things bacon in this FUNDRAISER FOR THE WASHTENAW COUNTY 4H!

Sat. June 19, 3 to 5pm on Zingerman’s Southside

• Bacon games for everyone!
• Bacon Maple Lattes from Zingerman’s Coffee Company
• Bacon Gelato, Bacon-wrapped City Goats, Bacon Scallion Cream Cheese from Zingerman’s Creamery
• Bacon Apple Donuts, Peppered Bacon Farm Bread, Bacon Cheddar Scones, and more from Zingerman’s Bakehouse
• Meet the pork curers!

Sample and buy from: Nueske’s, Ham I Am, La Quercia, Benton’s, Spencer’s

Free scoop of gelato between 11-4
Two gelato demos/tours
Taste the two summer seasonal flavors, Coconut and Lemon