Bacon

In less than a week I am going to Mexico for about 9 days. It's not easy to remain a vegetarian when traveling outside of the US. People don't understand why you don't eat meat and options are limited. It's rude to turn down meat when a poor family offers it to you since it's a honor to eat it. In any case, options are limited. So I've been preparing myself to eat meat, something which happens very rarely.

Last night my wife and I were shopping and we were hungry and didn't want to cook so we stopped at the Denny's on the way home. I chose this because I can get a veggie burger there that's not too bad. My wife likes breakfast food so it's all good. But she makes the mistake of trying to order a meat-filled dish without the meat. The waiter spoke less than perfect English and so didn't really understand what she was trying to say, which in New Mexico is always an issue when dealing with any aspect of service industries. So what ends up happening is that the ham in the dish is replaced with bacon and sausage.

Knowing that we will certainly have to eat meat to some extent in Mexico--and on the Sea of Cortez I can't justify not eating a fish taco or two--we decide to eat a bit of it that was in the dish. I tried a piece of sausage, which I found fairly disgusting. I then tried a bit of bacon.

I don't get it. I know a lot of people who find bacon a sublime food. I didn't remember thinking all that much of it when I ate meat. I thought that might have been because good food was unknown in my household growing up and so I hadn't been exposed to good bacon. Now I'm not saying that Denny's bacon is great, but I can't imagine that the greatest bacon would be that good. I just don't get it. It's this crunchy thing that kind of falls apart in your mouth and leaves something of an aftertaste.

So what's the deal with bacon? Can anyone explain to me why people like it so much? Because I am at a complete loss.