Last December, the blogosphere ignited over a culinary curiosity called the Bacon Explosion. Best visualized as a pork lover’s jellyroll, the dish calls for a weave of bacon wrapped around sausage and smoked on the grill. The original post on bbqaddicts.com received 835 comments (and counting), including one that read: “I feel sorry for the Jews and the Moslems and the vegetarians. They shall never know the true blessing of such a pork overload.” Perhaps the reader should suspend his sympathy.
Just 21 days after the Bacon Explosion’s debut, a music industry professional named Marc Shapiro launched the blog BaconJew. The blog features posts about such oddities as bacon jellybeans, interspersed with shtick-y humor. A self-proclaimed “super Reform” Jew, Shapiro views his site (inspired partly by the Bacon Explosion) as a lighthearted but earnest homage to his favorite meat. He is not alone in his obsessions.
Over the past few years, pork-loving Jews have staked out an irreverent patch of ground within the larger Jewish community. Online, BaconJew is joined by a community forum called Jews for Bacon, and in May the Web site Jewcy published an article called “Exposed: The Jewcy Bacon Fetish.” Author Jessica Miller wrote, “I am about to let you in on a little secret that is shocking, but true. Jewcy people love bacon. So, so much.”
In a less gratuitous but equally revealing example, Meatpaper — a journal dedicated to exploring meat culture — recently published a “Pig Issue” that included some contributors with Jewish surnames (Adler, Rose, Wizansky, etc.). Meanwhile, Shapiro’s other project, an apparel line called Kosher Klothing, includes a T-shirt with a pig image diagramed into cuts of meat with the word “kosher” stamped underneath. The shirt is his most popular seller.
These cultural markers suggest that among a certain population of Jews, it is hip to be treyf. Unlike previous generations of American Jews who knowingly, but guiltily, consumed ham at Chinese restaurants if the lighting was low enough, today’s Jews proudly embrace — and even flaunt — their pork consumption as a central, albeit ironic, aspect of their identity. “[Eating pork is] in some ways a form of social currency in young and progressive Jewish communities,” writer Jeff Yoskowitz commented on the blog The Jew & the Carrot. It pushes buttons, redefining the boundaries of how a “good Jew” should act. Not insignificantly, the same pattern of transgression holds for other taboos (for example, Jews with tattoos).
Still, why pork? Kashrut forbids any number of animals from landing on the Jewish plate. And as David Kraemer writes in his book “Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages” (Routledge, 2007): “[In] the Torah’s enumeration, the pig appears side by side with other prohibited animals, marked by no highlighting formulation… it is but one of many outlawed species.” So how did eating a bacon cheeseburger become the ultimate act of gastro-transgression? The irony and shock value factors are certainly part of the equation, but the pull of pork on the American Jewish psyche goes deeper.
Yoskowitz, who contributed an article to Meatpaper on Jewish and Muslim pork prohibitions, points to the pig’s ubiquity in the American diet. Pork is relatively easy to produce, and it’s as beloved in the diner as it is in the fancy restaurant. “It’s the ultimate food of the everyman,” Yoskowitz told the Forward. Or as Dana Cowin, editor in chief of Food & Wine magazine, asserted in a recent panel discussion on food and gender: “Bacon is a universal. It is hard to love food and not love bacon.” What better way to jump “whole hog” into secular society than by consuming its most universal food?
On a darker note, the pig is steeped in centuries of oppressive symbolism. Kraemer writes:
II Maccabees records two related, gruesome stories in which the pious heroes… demonstrate their steadfast commitment to the faith by refusing to eat swine’s flesh… the text indicates that the king’s men sought to force our heroes to eat this meat as a means of compelling them to transgress their ancestral law.
Countless examples of similar acts of persecution can be found throughout history — enough so that, over time, Jews’ strained relationship to the pig ripened into a full-fledged loathing. With symbolic baggage like that, it is no wonder that pork eventually became the superlative shande (and therefore, an alluring forbidden fruit).
But here’s the real irony: On a broader level, Jews’ relationship with the pig is one of the few experiences shared by all Jews, regardless of observance. Most kosher-keeping (or at least pig-avoiding) Jews have a “pork story” — a vivid memory of a first greasy, rebellious bite of bacon, or a twinge of temptation over the ham at a friend’s Christmas party. And even Jews who grew up eating pork chops may either harbor a tiny bit of ambivalence about it or, like Shapiro’s Bacon Jews, view their kosher transgressions as part of their Jewishness. These experiences ask us to define where we stand in our personal observance and among the larger community. So while the Bacon Explosion will come and go (“There will be some special on MTV, and then it will be over,” Shapiro said), the pig itself will remain — a burly, grunting reminder of the hidden things that unite us.
This is the first in a new monthly column by Leah Koenig on food and culinary trends. Koenig’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Gastronomica, Saveur and other publications. She lives in New York City.
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whats next, Jews for incest?
It’s really too sad that many Jews want to ignore Kosher eating. It is true that the rules of keeping & eating kosher have undergone many rabbinical revisions & interpretations from the simple Torah requirement of “not cooking a kid in the milk of its mother” to what we are expected to do in modern times, but this has been one of the basic tenets of Judaism over the millenniums. I do think that the Orthodox rabbis need to update the rules in the light of modern developments and that Jews should respect the Kosher rules.
To the self-proclaimed pork-eating Jews: It is time to grow up and learn what it means to be Jew.
I one thinks the only Biblical prohibition is “not cooking a kid in the milk of its mother”, one should read Leviticus, Chapter 11. Notwithstanding that, I think ther IS room to reconsider the extensive Rabbinical extensions, such as including poultry in the class of meat, even though the Bible specifically gives different prohibitions for birds than for mammals, clearly seeing them as a different class of objects.
The artical reminded me of the old joke(much shortened here), about the Priest and the Rabbi, lifelong colleagues and friends, mutually reminiscing about their lives and careers over snifters of brandy.
The Priest turns to the Rabbi and asks " Moshe, I know you are pious and observant, but tell me.. in your whole life, did you ever eat pork?" The Rabbi answers, " Well, to tell the truth, when I was a young Army Chaplain, away from home and my mother's cooking for the first time in my life, the bacon smelled SO good, I succumbed to temptation and tried some." "But tell me, John, in YOUR whole life, did you ever break your chaste life and have sexual relations?"
And the Priest answers " Well, I never told anyone bt my Confessor, but when I was in Seminary, I was so homesick, and my high school girlfriend visited me ... one thing led to another and we made love"
The Rabbi smiles, winks and says" Better than bacon, wasn't it!"
is that a photo of a pig or of Tzippi Livni getting a message from Rahm Emanuel on how to destabilize the Netanyahu govt?
"Unlike previous generations of American Jews who knowingly, but guiltily, consumed ham at Chinese restaurants if the lighting was low enough, today’s Jews proudly embrace — and even flaunt — their pork consumption as a central, albeit ironic, aspect of their identity."
Ah yes, some jews have embraced irony as their religion.
others have turned christians by, ironically, of course.
I wish them an ironic dose of trichinosis.
Jewish liberals are already addicted to pork. Just look at all the government spending Obama and Congress are sending our way.
Yes American Jews love bacon and Obama - the question is, are they really Jews or just Americans whose ancestors several generations ago (some of them) were Jewish?
This is really a new trend? I've known a number of older Jews who think that eating pork is a holy mitzvah and that there's something wrong with me for not doing so. Of course, they are also the sort who believe that it is a holy mitzvah to violate any essential Jewish observance.
There are those of us who believe that this world operates according to a divine plan -- that we have free will either to serve G-d or to be -- indeed -- pigs. We also believe that we were placed in this world for a reason, and that before we were born we took an oath -- We did not take an oath to serve ourselves and to do whatever we want (or think we want) or to follow the ways of the world, but we took an oath to at all times in this world have 'clean hands and a pure heart.' Those of us who believe this also have a tranquil confidence that when G-d does reveal His G-dliness in the world so that it is no longer hidden - something we believe will happen very soon - those Jews who eat pork and get tattoos will feel a great and overwhelming embarassment -- that when they had the free will to choose to live according to the Torah -- they refused. So let them eat their pork and get their tattoos -- and let them chortle about it and sing it to the high heavens. The day will come soon when all of us will eat the fruit of the consequences of our actions. Mock it if you will; disdain it -- we after all do have free choice. I'm sure those who were washed away in the flood were equally sanguine in their personal choices; excuse me -- "lifestyle". But the day is coming, and when it does -- don't say we didn't warn 'ya. Love, - An Orthodox Jew.
As a convert - having been the Christian that "didn't get it" when Jewish friends couldn't have/do certain things - I understand that there is some deep though unnessary embarassment about having to explain your actions all of the time. I think young people are afraid to really be Jewish, because it isn't seen as cool. I would encourage those Jews to turn that around and be cool because you're Jewish. Don't eat the pork, it won't make you a better person. I've tasted the bacon, it wasn't that hard to give up. -Chanukah
This is truly a pathetic commentary about American Jewry today. These are the same people who will intermarry (or never marry), and are unlikely to have Jewish descendents. At the end of days (which are very soon), only Torah observant Jews will be left, the others will have self destructed.
Besides which, what's wrong with using Morningstar Bacon Strips? They're made from soy, have very little fat, and taste good as well.
Best comment here - Steve Moses. So true about Jews, pork and Obama. In fact, these same pork procuring people are the ones who are head over heels obsessed with him.
#1 - Let's leave politics out of this discussion...if you want to "diss" the current administration because you favored the last one as more"Jewish," you would have to answer to Ari Fleisher's Saturday wedding to a non-Jew. Stalemate!
#2 - The further I read into the story, I thought to myself, "This is satire...the best since Mort Sahl. She's trying to stimulate our creative (pardon me) 'jewces'." Well, Ms. Koenig really got everyone going, didn't she? I don't know Jews who have "pork stories," only those who either eat it or do not. Maybe we should mass produce the babirusa so our people can have their pork and eat it, too!
My father grew up in an Orthodox household, and therefore did not care for it. Ours was not observant. Howevger, he did not want to eat pork - though we did eat bacon in the house. Once at a chineese restaurant, he vetoed sweet and sour pork, so we had sweet and sour shrimp instead. I think thaty is because where he grew up in Minneapolis, his neighbors in a lower middle class area did not eat shrimp, but did eat pork - so he did not hear from Orthodox sources not to eat shrimp when he was growing up
I grew up kosher style, and while I wanted to try pork as a kid since everyone else said it was good, I never did. As a teen, I chose to become a vegetarian and got so used to never eating meat that I was no longer even tempted by pork (or beef or lamb for that matter).
Then, I ordered a slice of cheese pizza while on a school trip, and it was the worst tasting pizza I had ever had. So, after a couple of awful bites, I started to take it apart and discovered that there were pepperonis under the cheese. I couldn't believe that this was what everyone had been saying was so great. Turns out I wasn't missing anything good after all.
You could have entitled this article as a prophesy on the evolving disappearance and death knell of American Jewry.
millenia.
A BLT is a Jewish girl's best friend.