Still, it does sometimes seem the vegetarian hordes are growing stronger (how do they, with so little protein?) and that they mean to turn us all into them.

The good news is that bacon is putting up a helluva fight. I discovered a blogger recently who was weighing the pros and cons of going veggie. She listed the common arguments: cholesterol, the questionable safety of mass-produced meat, mad-cow disease, the fact that “some people object to eating food with a face.” But then, drooling on her keyboard, she confessed. “BACON is a huge sticking point with me. . . . Bacon . . . mmmm . . . bacon. . . .”

Bissonette knows bacon’s power to persuade firsthand. “I know this kid who’s been a vegan for seven years,” he says. “But now he’s starting to get out of veganism. He eats vegan six days a week. And on Sundays he has bacon. That’s awesome.”

As they don T-shirts with slogans like “Bacon is a vegetable” and “Bacon: the gateway meat,” vegans and vegetarians aren’t the only ones questioning the strictures that prevent them from supping on succulent swine. At jews4bacon.com, the site’s heretofore kosher proprietor rationalizes his predilection for pork. “Deuteronomy might have been right about a few things. It’s true, we shouldn’t have eaten pelicans, and we still shouldn’t. But bacon is delicious. I don’t think they’ll ever make anything delicious out of pelicans, but c’mon. Bacon?”

Wake-up slow and greasy
What power hath this meat? Matty Sallin, creator of the Wake n’ Bacon alarm clock, has a theory. “There’s a number of qualities that give it wide appeal. It’s a snack; it’s a little strip. There’s no commitment of eating a whole salad, or a whole bowl of cereal. It’s this little ‘accessory meat.’ Second, it’s bad for you, so it’s viewed as an indulgence. Third, it probably packs more flavor per square inch than any other naturally occurring food.”

Not long ago, Sallin, who was taking a class on creative applications of technology, had an idea. Alarm clocks, he realized, are an unnecessary evil. “They wake you up by jarring you awake. It’s such an unpleasant experience. I thought there was great possibility for improvement there.”

So he canvassed his classmates for their favorite way to be rousted from slumber. “The most interesting non-sexual answer was waking up to the smell of bacon.” Genius. Not only is “the smell of Mom’s cooking a fantastic way to wake up,” it also “provides an incentive for you to get out of bed.”

Think of the Wake n’ Bacon like an EZ-Bake Oven, shaped like a pig. Place a strip of frozen bacon in its belly the night before. Set the alarm. Fall asleep. Fifteen minutes before you’re set to wake, two halogen bulbs will begin silently and slowly cooking. “By minute 12 or so, the scent is so strong and unmistakable, that you’re gonna wake up,” says Sallin. “Then you get to eat the crispy, tasty bacon. Or you could throw it away, I suppose. But who would want to do that?”

The Wake n’ Bacon is currently just a prototype, but a patent and mass-production are entirely possible. “It was something of a joke when I created it, but it works,” says Sallin. “Anyone who has any experience bringing products to market, I’m here to talk to them.” Let’s make this happen.

Grateful swine
How has this strip of crispy pork ascended to such a vaunted spot in the pop-cultural firmament? Homer Simpson has certainly done his part: “I’ll have the smiley-face breakfast special. Uhh, but could you add a bacon nose? Plus bacon hair, bacon mustache, five o’clock shadow made of bacon bits, and a bacon body?” Waitress: “How about I just shove a pig down your throat?”

The simplest answer, however, is usually the correct one. Bacon speaks for itself. It’s salty. It’s sweet. It’s crunchy. It’s greasy. And it’s everywhere. Whether it’s the gotta-see-it-to-believe-it art site baconrobots.com (“the only thing better than bacon is a smoking-hot animatronic lady to cook it for you”), the delectable Norwegian delicacy that is bacon-flavored cheese in a tube, or — astonishingly — bacon-flavored cotton candy, this meat holds strange sway over otherwise reasonable people.

But as we salivate then satiate, we must never forget whence bacon comes. We owe the pigs of the world our gratitude and thanks. We must think more like the writer William Hedgepeth, who dedicated his curly-tailed tome The Hog Book “to the millions of porkers who’ve gone to their final resting sites inside us, and to the ghosts of still billions more pigs who’ve long since passed away down the throat of time. I’d like to call them all by name, but the list is long and I cannot remember.”

Mike Miliard is coming to your house for breakfast tomorrow. He can be reached at mmiliard@thephoenix.com .

On the Web
The Bacon Show: //baconshow.blogspot.com/
Bacontarian: //bacontarian.com/
Bacon Unwrapped: //baconunwrapped.com/
Iheartbacon.com: //iheartbacon.com/
Meatpaper: //meatpaper.com/
The Wonderful Pig of Knowledge!: //pigofknowledge.blogspot.com/
Porkopolis: //porkopolis.org/
Shameless Carnivore: //shamelesscarnivore.com/