I’ll be updating this post all this week, as Salon is running ‘Pork Week’. Their words: The Discovery Channel has Shark Week. Here at Salon, we bring you Pork Week. This is a weeklong series of stories about that most polarizing of meats.

Bacon mania - “Why are Americans so batty for bacon? It’s delicious, it’s decadent — and it’s also a fashion statement.”

Belly of the Beast - making bacon

My family does not have adventurous tastes; my father is British, and was raised in a pub in the 50s (his parents owned it), so his food preferences are for bland, and boiled, and anything beyond salt and pepper is a little fancy for him. My mother…well, it’s a good thing that Dad only likes salt and pepper, because I think she’d be at a loss if she needed to ’season well’. When I was growing up, Wednesday was taco night (Old El Paso) because Dad didn’t like spices, and it was OEP because Mom can’t be trusted with them.

So a lot of my tastes needed to wait until I was out of the house to develop, and I am an adventurous eater simply as part of my general rebellious nature. I’ve often thought that part of why I spent 4 years in my teens as a vegetarian was because it gave me an excuse to eat things the rest of the family didn’t want in the house.

So I was 35 before I had matzoh balls, and they were a revelation to me. I had never much cared for dumplings, so I’d never really sought them out, but a number of my local friends here are Jewish, and 2 years ago I went to my first Passover, where some were served. I really had no idea that they could be that tasty, though oddly, they would likely be to my father’s taste, since they are slightly bland, and boiled.

I had bought a reduced for quick sale rotisserie chicken on Thursday, and eaten chicken for pretty much every meal since then, and was down to the carcass and all the meat that I couldn’t easily get at. So I made chicken stock, cooled it, shredded every last bit of chicken off the bones, and made matzoh balls for it. It was really good, and I have two more bowls to go through (after making that chicken into about 4 sandwiches, one regular type chicken and veggies meal, 2 bowls of potatoes and chicken, as well; it was a well used bird).