It is a long-standing and well-accepted fact of life that everything is made better by bacon. Well, this at least holds true for foodstuffs, and for folks who consume bacon. Obviously, if you eat meat, and furthermore eat pork, then it is not entirely unreasonable to state that you are a fool for anything wrapped, infused, or otherwise doped with that sweet sweet salty sweet pig candy, bacon.
Still, there are those, even amongst my closest friends, who do not eat bacon. This leads me to ask: is there a vegetarian equivalent to bacon? Now let’s be very clear here: I’m not talking about veggie bacon, soy bacon crumbles, or other fakery. Real bacon is real bacon, and nothing else is close. No, what I’m after is the foodstuff that, for the vegetarian, has that same magical power to completely transform any/all other (vegetarian) foods to otherworldly greatness, in much the same manner as bacon is able to do for those of us with less herbivorian instincts.
Is there such a substance? An ingredient? Some magical vegetarian condiment with powers approaching those of mighty bacon?
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I do NOT think there is any substitute for bacon. I was a vegetarian for four years and when I became pregnant with my 2nd daughter, all I craved was bacon and sausages. There was nothing that could stop me. Even now, the thought of giving up bacon, sausages or a delicious salami just makes me cringe. If I ever find something vegetarian that measures up, I’ll let you in on the secret vice.
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Being a meat-eating bacon-loving human being, my answer might be of no value to you, BUT I’ve recently started reducing the amount of animal fats in my diet AND I must say olives (especially black olives) and olive oil are my perfect veggie equivalent to bacon. Well, that may be because I live in the south of France and divine olives are easy to find here.
I would add that truffles and truffle oil are even greater, but it’s “a little” too expensive to compete.
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I am not a vegetarian myself, but I have many vegetarian friends. I’ve long been witness to their suffering as they endure non-bacon-enhanced foods, and am curious to learn of a way to temper their suffering. 😉
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I reckon grated tasty cheese makes a lot of savoury dishes taste better. Like bacon, it has a strong salty flavour, that gives a bit of zing to blander ingredients.
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I’m also a vegetarian and just had 2 delicious bacon sandwiches as I’m pregnant and craved it so much. I will return to vegetarianism after pregnancy. For me, soy sauce and ginger enliven most dishes. For example, tofu is completely bland. Marinade it (firm tofu best) in grated ginger and soy sauce then toss it in a pan till crisp and it becomes another creature..
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