Bacon. It’s not just for breakfast anymore. Top chefs around the country are embracing the hog; featuring pork belly, bacon, and pancetta regularly on their menus.
Nowadays, restaurants offer pork in everything from starters and entrees, to drinks and desserts.
So it makes perfect sense that bacon festivals are popping up across the nation to feed the bacon frenzy.
Central Coast bacon lovers, rejoice! The first festival dedicated to America’s favorite cured meat is coming to a town near you.
Tickets go on sale April 1 for the inaugural Bacon and Barrels, July 19 through 21 in Los Olivos; a fun-filled weekend including a multi-course bacon dinner and a day-long festival featuring creative bacon dishes from inventive Central Coast chefs, and wine, bourbon, and craft beer sampling.
The entire family is invited to enjoy the food, down-home music, and even a piggy petting zoo.
Event sponsor and wine producer Keith Saarloos is quoted on the festival website as saying, “Bacon and Barrels is about our wonderfully inviting community and sharing the bounty that is the Santa Ynez Valley. Welcome to Hog Heaven. No snobs.”
Event director Holly Holliday and her event production company, Create Promotions, came up with the idea as a fundraiser for the Santa Ynez Valley Visitors Association.
“Bacon, and pork belly, and pig in its forms, is hot, and what the chefs are working with,” Holliday told me.
“We call it the hot meat of the moment, but it’s something that’s always been popular,” Holliday added. “Foodies are going crazy over it and it’s highly inventive. They’ve learned that bacon is not just a base, but it’s an accompaniment and an ingredient. You can use bacon in a variety of ways.”
Saturday’s main event is from noon to 5 p.m. in downtown Los Olivos at the Saarloos and Sons field, next to the winery’s tasting room.
Chefs from Sides, Hardware and Shoes, The Ballard Inn, Full of Life Flatbread, and Cecco, among others, will supply special food tastings.
“They are going to be stretching their imagination with bacon,” Holliday said.
Festivalgoers are sure to be in hog heaven tasting the creations.
Chefs will also give interactive demonstrations on how to work with bacon.
If you’re still hungry, carefully selected food vendors will also offer all-bacon menus.
Then, local mixologists, brewers, and wineries “will quench your thirst with refreshing bacon-based and bacon-inspired cocktails and brews,” Holliday said. They will also give demonstrations on how to infuse your own spirits at home.
Celebrity judges will select the best of the best and award one chef and one mixologist with the 2013 Jefe del Porko award, celebrating special achievement in the bacon arts.
A barrel garden for the 21-and-older crowd will pour wines from boutique wineries such as Alta Maria, Casa Dumetz, Cold Heaven, Municipal Winemakers, Point Concepción, Refugio Ranch, Riverbench, Roark Wines, Saarloos and Sons, Sunstone, Tercero, and Tessa Marie.
Craft beers will be on tap from Almanac, Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co., Firestone Walker, The Brewery at Abigaile, and The Bruery.
Unique, high-end distillers will also share their ultra-premium spirits at Bacon and Barrels.
Santa Barbara County’s first legal distillery since the Prohibition era, Ascendant Spirits in Buellton, is one of several that will serve up bourbon samples.
The Friday night “A Mid-Summer Night’s Bacon Dream” VIP dinner, under the stars in the Saarloos and Sons field in the heart of Los Olivos, highlights the culinary talents of the divine Maegen Loring, executive chef at Dolphin Bay’s Lido Restaurant in Shell Beach.
Each bacon or pork belly course will be paired with Saarloos and Sons wine. Tickets for the Friday dinner are $100.
Saturday festival tickets are $30 before July 19. Tickets will be sold at the door for $40. There are special $20 tickets for pork-loving non-drinkers.
“We wanted to keep it affordable fun,” Holliday said.
She invites bacon lovers to visit the valley, stay in the valley, and experience the valley this summer, when Los Olivos is sure to sizzle.
Sun food and wine writer Wendy Thies Sell likes to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. Contact her at wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 4, 2013.