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Looking back across the years, there are a lot of things that I remember fondly about Boy Scout camp. Food, however, is not one of them. While servings were plentiful, they were also clearly designed to save money and, even at the age of ten, I could tell that the powdered eggs, watery Kool-Aid (aka "bug juice"), and gristly burgers were only a small step up from prison chow. Over the course of the week, I used to load up on the occasionally palatable entree, but usually relied on bread, butter, and fruit to get me through. While many of the dishes at Camp Rock Enon represented the culinary arts version of crimes against humanity, the worst, by far, was the fake bacon. Designed to resemble weather stripping, it was clearly artificial, with stripes that looked like they were painted on by Willy Wonka's employees and a scent that tried to approximate pork, but was actually redolent of a chemistry set. The "fakie bakie" was so bad that it actually turned my campmates and I off the real thing. I don't know what everybody else did with their pseudo-bacon, but my buddies and I used it in a collection of initiation games that bordered on cruel and unusual punishment.
It's been a few decades, and I'd almost completely forgotten about the utter horror of camp bacon. However, I happened across Eat Me Daily's review of Morningstar Farms' Bacon Strips and, in an instant, I was hurtled back to my childhood bacon hell. Basically, it seems like they've found the same hellish junk that still haunts my nightmares. On the bright side, the writer managed to perfectly capture the revulsion that this stuff evoked in me; this is nice because, although I have been forced to relive a terrifying period in my life, I am comforted by the knowledge that I am not alone.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-20-2008 @ 7:50PM
Sarah said...
Well, the bright side is now days hikers eat real bacon. Thank god for the invention of precooked shelf stable bacon!
Fake bacon strips cause me to laugh every time I see those god-awful Morningstar ones!
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11-20-2008 @ 8:53PM
Gary said...
Sadly I actually remember the "fake bacon" and how it tasted like salted cardboard. Why would anyone want to bring back such a horror. It sounds like Morningstar wants to cure people of vegetarianism.
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11-21-2008 @ 1:50AM
Samme said...
Correct me if I am wrong, but a lot of people who go vegetarian do so because it is usually a more healthy way of eating. Looking at all those chemicals on the ingredient list on the fake bacon (Fakon?) I would have to suggest that decent quality real bacon seems to be healthier and tastier. It would seem that facon is therefore neither for vegetarians nor meat eaters.
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11-21-2008 @ 7:36AM
Alexi said...
I'm not sure which bothers me more: the fake bacon in that picture or how filthy the pan and range surface are.
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11-21-2008 @ 9:55AM
Gobo said...
Wow, I'm totally fascinated by your story -- I had no idea that fake bacon was being served at Scout camps. I spent a few summers at camp, myself, and we never got fake bacon... or real bacon for that matter. Just big vats of rubbery scrambled eggs, burnt hashbrowns, and cereal.
I still buy the fake bacon, myself, every once in a while... not to eat like bacon strips, next to eggs, but to add to a veggie BLT, crumble up in a salad, or a recipe ingredient. They add a crunchy smokiness that I'd never mistake for actual bacon, but can be kind of nice.
Of course now that I've got Bacon Salt and Baconaise, who needs cardboard strips of fake bacon??
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11-21-2008 @ 10:20AM
Daniel said...
I'm not sure where you guys went to Scout Camp, but I'm from Alabama (yes, I wear shoes, have indoor plumbing, and recently acquired electricity) and at Camp Sequioa we had some of the best food of my young life! The wonderful kitchen staff (of Scout Masters) made some fantastic homemade biscuits, hashbrowns, REAL eggs, pancakes, pork-chops, big lean burgers, etc etc etc.
We ate like kings for a week! In the words of the scout master, "Boys, you can take all you want, but by God, eat all you take." Good times.
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11-23-2008 @ 12:43AM
Suzana said...
When they first came out with the "turkey bacon" it not only tasted like plastic, which was bad enough, but the fact that each slice was almost exactly identical both fascinated and repulsed me. At least the imitation bacon bits not only tasted like bacon, they weren't exactly alike.
The stuff in that pan reminds me of the Gummy Bacon seen on the Archie Mc Phee's website.
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11-23-2008 @ 12:33PM
Suzana said...
When they first came out with the "turkey bacon" it not only tasted like plastic, which was bad enough, but the fact that each slice was almost exactly identical both fascinated and repulsed me. At least the imitation bacon bits not only tasted like bacon, they weren't exactly alike.
The stuff in that pan reminds me of the Gummy Bacon seen on the Archie Mc Phee's website.
Reply