The Earthly Explanation of a Heavenly
Scent
Okay. You all know how I feel about my
bacon. You probably feel the same way or you wouldn't be reading
this.
For as long as I can remember, the lure
of cooking bacon has drawn me to the kitchen. In fact, bacon is the
first thing I ever learned to cook back at the tender age of seven.
More than fifty years later, I'm still cooking it and it still calls
to me as it sizzles in a pan or on a flattop. I've often referred to
the salty, porky taste of bacon as “ambrosia” – the ancient
“food of the gods.” Whether you're talking about high-end artisan
bacon like the stuff I get from Benton's in Madisonville, Tennessee
or supermarket fare from Oscar Meyer, bacon really does make
everything better.
But, taste aside, what is it about the
smell of bacon being cooked
that is so irresistible? You can be in the next room, the basement,
the garage, or out plowing the back forty and as soon as you get a
whiff of bacon cooking in the kitchen, you start to drool and
salivate and your brain goes into a gear completely dedicated to
obtaining and consuming bacon. The shifter on your car's transmission
reads P R N D. In the case of your brain, that translates to Pork
Right Now Dammit.
I like
to think of it as a sensory gift from Mother Nature, carried on an
ethereal zephyr to the very depths of my soul. But leave it to cold,
hard science to come up with a chemical explanation. It all has to to
with the Maillard reaction and an estimated one hundred-fifty organic
aroma compounds. In case you missed out on Food Science 101, the
Maillard reaction is what makes certain foods turn a nice golden,
crusty brown. This process only works with amino acid compounds,such
as those found in meat, heated to certain temperatures. As I keep
screaming at idiot TV chefs, “caramelization,” which involves the
pyrolysis of sugars, is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT process. Are you
listening, Michael Symon? But I digress.
Tell
you what, rather than reading all the mind-numbing terminology about
hydrocarbons and aldehydes and pyradine and pyrazine, why don't you
just click on the link below and watch a little two-minute video
produced on You Tube by The American Chemical Society and Compound
Interest? Just ignore the way the girl in the voiceover pronounces "Maillard." It's supposed to be "my-YAR" rather than "MEE-yard," but she means well.
Way
back in 1697, William Congreve famously wrote, “Musick has Charms
to sooth a savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”
Yeah, maybe. But ol' Bill never took into account the smell of
cooking bacon, or he would have written something entirely more
appropriate. So do your part to promote world peace and harmony.
Throw open all your windows and doors and cook some bacon.
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