I am a vegetarian…well, sort of. I eat any fish or seafood so I guess that makes me a pescetarian, but meat and poultry products haven’t graced my lips since I was 15.
So why would a person who hasn’t touched the stuff in over 30 years want to go to a bacon festival?
Call me crazy but…curiosity mostly…I thought it would be interesting to see who shows up both as attendees and vendors.
And I have to say, I was not disappointed. What can I say, I am easily amused.
Besides, I wanted to pay homage to the Spanish settlers who introduced America to bacon back in the 1500s. I made mention of this particular fact in my blog last week. By the way, did you know there are actually 5 ways to say bacon in Spanish?…
Uno…Tocino
Dos…Tocineta
Tres…Panceta
Quatro…Beicon
Cinco…Bacón
Hmmm…I guess we adopted #5 in English. And suffice it to say, if you ever travel to a Spanish speaking country you can now feel pretty confident in ordering bacon properly…You’re welcome.
Full disclosure: This is where I have to insert the standard blogger’s thing that this is technically considered a “sponsored post”. I did receive 2 complimentary passes to the America Loves Bacon Festival this past weekend at the Florida State Fairgrounds (thanks to a fellow member of Tampa Bay Bloggers, Carlos Hernandez of Carlos Eats) in exchange for writing this, but anything to help promote things happening in the Tampa Bay community and satisfy my curiosity I will happily sell my soul…ok, maybe not my soul…but you know what I mean. Carry on…
I obviously needed a sidekick of sorts to do all the sampling. I figured my 18 year old son or my husband would happily come along for the ride but they didn’t seem to share my curiosity for this particular field trip.
Their loss and my friend Ellen’s gain. I think her response when I asked her whether she wanted to go was “Shut up!”
I took that as a yes.
We actually had been at the Walk For Wishes that morning supporting another friend who has a son with neuroblastoma and had been a Make a Wish Foundation “wish” recipient last year.
Pediatric cancer survivors helping grant the next “wish”… Our friend’s son is the second from the left
The actual walk took place along the just completed (but 40 years in the making) Tampa Riverwalk…
Awesome photo opp along the Riverwalk
…and then walked an extra 3 miles to and from the Tampa Convention Center to watch yet another friend’s daughter for a little while in a volleyball tournament. Ellen decided that she needed a little extra pre bacon festival prep so she ran up and down the steps outside the convention center just for good measure. She’s the one with her arms up in the air in case you can’t tell.
Ellen doing her best impression of “Rocky”
By the time we got to the bacon festival, we were really hungry so we made a bee line for the first food truck we saw. Lucky for me it was The Maine Thang, a “pescetarian” based truck and we shared a lobster roll that hit the spot, albeit a very expensive one… $11. Yeah, as usual, I found the most expensive thing to eat in the whole place.
Good friends share lobster rolls
Worth $11? Does it really matter when you are hungry???
Onward and upward…
Ellen eyed the booth for Datz Dough, a South Tampa foodie mecca, where she claimed their bacon brownie “ridiculous”…as in ridiculously amazing.
Before I could get a decent photo of the bacon brownie it went into Ellen’s mouth so that means I had no choice but to post this photo…sorry Ellen
Their bacon mac ‘n cheese, though…apparently not so amazing. She took one bite and asked for her sample ticket back. Fortunately, they didn’t argue with her and we moved on to The Madison Chocolatiers West and their bacon donut. Ellen claimed she was only going to take one bite so she could pace herself, but it seemed to have disappeared rather quickly. I assume that means she liked it.
This time I got a photo before a bite was taken.
As we meandered around to the various booths and food trucks, the lines were getting longer by the minute. Ellen, however, was clearly struggling with what to get with the precious remaining sample tickets. Then she stopped suddenly, looking intensely at the menu on the side of one of the food trucks and screamed…
“SHUT THE FRONT DOOR…DEEP FRIED BACON WRAPPED TWINKIES?… NO FREAKING WAY!”
Yes, all caps do emphasize just how excited she got, don’t they? I waited in line for almost 30 minutes for this…
Is there anything they won’t deep fry or wrap in bacon?
while Ellen sampled these…
Bacon and onion perogies
For the record, there were lots of people sporting some interesting articles of bacon inspired clothing/costumes including these guys dressed as slices of the stuff…
Can’t imagine it really would have tasted very good Ellen!
and this one…
Hehe…his shirt says boobies
but I kind of liked this one the best for it’s creative extension of the word “exercise”…
This is one giant stretch
Did I mention it was hot?
Like stupid hot…as in why are we walking around in the middle of the day when it is so freakin’ hot!
This is Florida in April after all and, yes, you literally could have fried the bacon on the pavement.
But that didn’t seem to deter the thousands of people who showed up and, yes, that included a few protesters stationed right at the entrance/exit to the fairgrounds. I have to question if they thought there was any possibility they were going to convert a single bacon loving soul on their way in or out, but I definitely give them major props for trying.
What exactly is their end game at a bacon festival?
When all was said and done, Ellen sampled 8 different things, claimed she was officially “over” bacon and was going home to have celery sticks for dinner.
The next morning she set me a text with the message “Look what Dave (aka her husband) is doing” and this photo…
So much for being “over” bacon
That’s it for now…#BlackerOut !
Beth Blacker...Call Me Crazy 