Why Does Bacon Smell So Good

My David loves beans and bacon. I was getting ready to fry up a little bit of bacon for the beans when I began to wonder why bacon does smell so good. Of course, for all my answers I go to Google. It seems it is because of the Maillard effect. Go figure.

"The Maillard reaction occurs in foods when there are carbohydrate and protein molecules present. Basically, it is the reaction that makes foods turn brown. In fact, it can happen in stored (uncooked) foods but it's much slower. Higher temperatures make it happen faster. "

Can you just see the folks sitting around the funeral pyre when one of their fat relatives has pass on smacking their lips and drooling over the crisp hide of the departed.

Beats my cacklin's idea and reminds me of the movie, Motel Hell.

Love,
Betty

Oh my goodness, I haven't thought about the movie Motel Hell in years! That was a wretched, scary movie. Well, I guess if I remember it all these years later it served some purpose! Ha!

I was thinking about how good bacon and sausage smell just this morning. I have never heard of the Maillard reaction, but my nose sure likes it!

Dear Merri,
I loved Motel Hell. I laughed all the way through it. When it got to the part where the harvest began, I fell out of my chair. Yanked those people out of the ground like big carrots! When I saw it, it was black and white. Just perfect for those Drive In movies.
Love,
Betty

I saw it in black and white, too. Now, how come you thought it was funny and I thought it was scary? Ha! Except, as I recall, the acting was very, very poor (which is why I called it wretched). I do remember everyone being "planted" in the ground with hoods over their heads. Eeek!!! I had nightmares about that.

Dear Merri,
It really was one of those B movies that you do not forget. Now, you take Psycho, that scared me. But Motel Hell, I could see a couple of podunks out in the back woods, used to be pig farmers, developing their idea to get rich, renting out the rooms for new meat, so to speak. The idea of it just made me laugh. I thought it was genius.

Love,
Betty

I wonder how much money they made off of that movie. Everyone I know has not only seen it, but remembers it!

I do remember it! It was a tad scary, but Psycho was the biggie. It was many years before I could shower in my house without someone else there, close at hand!

A motel i stayed at one night in Mississippi gave me chills from memories of both those movies.

It seems there were many folks inthe area who did not have tv sets, and the rooms were empty of them. They had been loaned out. The door would not lock, so I drug the dresser over to the door to block it. (I was about 25 months pregnant, mind you!)

I was so creped out that I took a shower, but hung towels and blankets over anything that even looked suspiciously like a two way mirror or a peep hole. I don't think I slept more than ten minutes at a stretch!

Smells? I love the smell of fried onions even more than bacon!

I used to work at a residential facility for young adults age 18-21 who were living with mental illness and chemical dependency issues. Long story short, I ended up working the overnight shift for several months and cooking became part of my job. Around 2:00 or 3:00am I'd begin preparing food that the day shift could simply assemble or pop in the oven when it came time for meals. Whenever I would put butter and onions in a skillet to sautee or carmelize, two of the boys would always come downstairs. They said they could smell the onions cooking through their closed room doors! They must have been right, because it never failed that within minutes of the onions hitting the pan, they would be down the stairs talking with me while I cooked 'em.

Psycho was scary, Zada. I agree. I still look over my shoulder once in a while in the shower. The same with Jaws. Even if I'm swimming in a lake, where I know a shark does not live, I still find myself looking for a tell-tale fin to come up out of the water!

Quote :

I was about 25 months pregnant, mind you!

Oh, God, Zada, do I get that!!

As for the smell of bacon, it is even better with onions frying up with it.

I have a recipe for a dish called "Jacob's Downfall." It is supposedly the "mess of pottage" (e.g. lentils cooked with olive oil and onions) that Jacob sold his birthright for. It doesn't involve bacon, but it does have onions frying in olive oil. The author of the article (If I remember correctly, it was from the Women's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, said she could clearly understand Jacob's dilemma, which probably started as soon as he smelled those frying onions.

For us, it would likely be the bacon fat and onions that we use to season whatever garden vegetables we are about to cook up.

Ann