The Smell of Bacon

Just look at this picture. You can smell it, can't you?

There's nothing quite like the smell of bacon. That salty, sizzly goodness, especially fried to a crispy dark brown in an iron skillet, is one of the best smells and flavors around. Maybe it's my pioneer Indiana roots, iron skillets used to cook salt pork over an open fire in the hearth of a log cabin, the abundance of pork, raised in Southwestern Indiana, packed and shipped to far away ports, like New Orleans...

Yep, I have an affinity for bacon, especially thick cut, meaty bacon. The fat has to be brown and crispy. If it's springy and chewy, I gag. I'll eat it cut to any thickness, but I prefer the thicker cuts.

The smell of it frying in the morning immediately takes me back in time.

My dad was a breakfast connoisseur, often getting up early to make it for himself or the fam. Bacon, spam, mush, eggs, potatoes and such were typically on the menu. If you don't know mush, you don't have Appalachian roots (I see ya Kentucky and Southern Indiana!). But the smell of bacon often reminds me of early childhood and dad on the weekends in the kitchen. Mom liked to sleep in.

My Uncle John would be the first adult up on trips to our Sullivan, Indiana, cabin. I'd be sleeping on the cool sheen of Grandma Doyle's old couch in the living room and on the other side of the bar, Uncle John would be banging around in the kitchen. I'd hear the iron skillet come out and soon the sound and smell of bacon! That would rouse me from sleep the quickest. The smell of bacon reminds me of those cool, musty mornings in that old cabin, Dad and Uncle Al asleep on old Army cots on the screened porch, kids sprawled about the floor in sleeping bags, the smell of the smoldering fire pit wafting through the open windows. There was dampness from the swampy land Grandpa Doyle purchased for the family cabin, a low spot on Greenbriar Lake, a spring-fed strip mine pit, abandoned in the late 40's/early 50's.

There were countless mornings at my house, cooking breakfast for my girls, bacon first into the skillet before scrambling eggs or making muffins, toast or biscuits. Thanks to my Dad, I've always been a fan of breakfast. First thing when I get up, the coffee is brewing and I'm getting food out of the fridge. My girls would often wake to that glorious smell. It signifies some of the simplest, yet happiest memories for me of fatherhood. And when we'd go to the family cabin, I'd be the one up early banging around the kitchen, looking for that old skillet. My girls would be asleep on inflatable mattresses just long enough for their short bodies, built-in Disney Princess sleeping bags on top. The couch long gone, along with the interior walls, my ex and I would have just slept through the night on an inflatable mattress of our own. A day of fishing, swimming, exploring and rowing would usually begin with the smell of bacon and that smoldering firepit just outside the cabin. Sometimes, I'd even regnite the coals and cook out there over the open flame.

That brings me full circle to my pioneer roots.

Our cabin, built by Dad's father, was about two counties north of where Mom's family, my pioneer ancestors from the East Coast, settled circa 1811. In those days, rough hewn logs from recently felled trees were notched and placed, like Lincoln Logs, into a rectangular shelter, fireplace at one end for heat and for cooking. I can imagine my 5th great uncles banging around with the iron skillet and setting some salted pork or smoked bacon in to start sizzling to perfection.

That smell, tops among all other food smells (garlic being a close second), is what takes me right back to my childhood, to the cabin, to fatherhood and makes me very happy. The payoff, the thick, crispy breakfast meat, is the end result every time. Paired with a couple of over-medium eggs and skillet potatoes, maybe an English muffin hot and buttered, is one of my favorite meals, so good I'd eat it three times a day!