A Bacon Bacchanalia, Coming to a City Near You
The Burning Man of bacon may soon be coming to your town.
The city long known as the “Hog Butcher to the World” celebrated smoked swine and culinary ingenuity this past Saturday, when thousands descended on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus for the fourth annual Baconfest Chicago. “It just keeps growing every year,” says 34-year-old organizer Seth Zurer.
The event's beginnings were rather modest. One Saturday night in March of 2009, Zurer got a call from his less-than-sober friends, Andre "VonBaconVitch" Pluess and Michael Griggs.
"They said, 'Dude, Burning Man of Bacon, what do you think?'" recalls Zurer, who works on* the website of a suburban industrial supply company. "I said, 'Sounds great, let's do it.' We made our Facebook page, our Twitter feed and we were rolling."
That October, a handful of restaurants and about 75 attendees took part in the debut. Three years later, Chicago's Baconfest has become a major draw, selling out 3,000 tickets (at $75 per person, $150 VIP) in 90 minutes and attracting major sponsors and more than 120 vendors and restaurants, including some of the city's top chefs.
“What better way to celebrate bacon than here?” says Jared Van Camp, manning the booth of Old Town Social, where he's head chef. For the event, he served springy cubes of housemade brioche topped with bacon taleggio cheese.