American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780820375403)

In American Bacon, Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon overcome centuries of religious prohibition, cultural contempt, and dietary advice to become a twenty-first-century culinary and cultural powerhouse? Starting in early modern Britain and tracing the story of bacon through the colonial era, Civil War, Progressive Era, modern fad diets, and the emerging craft bacon industry, Johnson provides a new perspective on some familiar American narratives. More than a story of production, marketing, and consumption, Johnson argues, this cultural history connects bacon to race, class, and gender while also illuminating major historical forces, such as migration, warfare, urbanization and suburbanization, reform movements, cultural trends, and globalization. For Johnson, bacon's story from "most dangerous food in the supermarket" to pop culture and gastronomic phenomenon reflects the cultural values of a nation.

Author: Mark A. Johnson
ISBN-10: 0820375403
ISBN-13: 9780820375403
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Language: English
Published: 04/15/2026
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover