Mark A Johnson: American Bacon

Boswell hosts an evening with Milwaukee native Mark A Johnson, author of American Bacon, a book in which he considers 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? Johnson traces the story of bacon from early modern Britain through the colonial era, Civil War, Progressive Era, modern fad diets, and the emerging craft bacon industry. Along the way, he provides a new perspective on some familiar American narratives. Johnson's cultural history connects bacon to race, class, and gender while 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.