- Michael Gebert
- Pork soda display from Fresco 21
Until this weekend, I hadn’t attended Baconfest since 2009, when I gave a talk on bacon making (which owed liberally to Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie). Chicago’s annual salute to cured pork belly draws over 100 chefs, thousands of attendees over the course of three sessions, and raises tens of thousands of dollars for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. It also sells out in about 12 minutes, so when coorganizer/old pal Seth Zurer invited me to go inside the belly of the beast—that is, to be a judge for the Friday night session—I grabbed my older son and jumped at the chance.
We had an hour to go out and try our assigned dishes during the VIP sessions. I started with dessert, where Eddie Lakin of Edzo’s had a shake with chunks of bacon in it—and, he pointed out, an extrathick straw so they wouldn’t get clogged.
Michael Gebert
“Red devils on piggyback,” bacon-wrapped cherry peppers, Mity Nice Grill
Michael Gebert
Chrissy Camba with a bacon Maddy’s Dumpling
Michael Gebert
Tete Charcuterie’s bacon mortadella on gougere puffs
Back in the meeting room, we had our six contenders: Trenchermen, Fork (a bacon-stuffed date wrapped in bacon), Red Door (an arepa, a South American corn cake, topped with bacon, wild boar, and chimichurri), Tanta (chicharron in a sweet Asian glaze in sweet potato puree), Woodhaven Bar and Kitchen, which none of us had ever heard of (it’s in River North), with bacon-and-goat-cheese-infused bison, wrapped in bacon, and, the only dessert choice, Big Jones’ bacon-praline bread pudding with bacon-fat whipped cream.
