The Bacon Fat Bellwether, just a little tongue in cheek

I often try to gauge how I'm going to like a person by questioning them about their taste in music or films, generally testing to see their reaction to things perhaps outside the mainstream. I mean almost everyone is going to have enjoyed The Godfather and the Beatles but I'm more interested in your opinion of The Long Good Friday and Little Feat. I'm not saying I will write someone off if they don't appreciate the things I do, but it certainly makes me a tad suspicious.

Food and wine are also good areas to engage new acquaintances in their preferences to see if you are likely to long term friends. I know that vegetarians exist, and I know many have reasons they believe viable for their food stance but I doubt seriously that we could ever be long term amici, I mean there's just too wide a gap to bridge . I can excuse long time friends who drink Cariboo Lager but a stranger who does is going to be on beer probation until I see some signs of positive improvement.

I'm not totally set in my ways, a person who I consider a friend eats his steaks well done, burnt to be honest, can't abide mayonaisse and cheers for both the Red Sox and the Patriots but I can look past that because we have forged a bond through the years ..........actually this same person listens to Fleet Foxes and drinks light beer with fish tacos, maybe it's time to more closely analyze this relationship.

But I digress, the simplest bellwether for future friendship revolves around bacon, though doesn't everything ?  Bacon may well the ultimate food known to man, sweet, salty, savoury, crispy and just plain delicious. When daughter first experienced it, at age three, she approached it with the temerity that kids show towards any new food. Once it hit the taste buds though her comment was: "This is Bacon ?......what took you so long !!!!!!!".  I recall a survey that stated that when asked what they missed most from their previous diets over 70% of vegetarians said bacon, so whether or not someone likes bacon isn't really an issue the question is:

"Do you keep a jar of bacon fat in your kitchen ?"

If the answer is no, then long term friendship is probably not in the cards, unless you have some outstanding other personal traits. Once, a few summers back, we had neighbours over for burgers, the male of the couple and I were discussing the burgers and I mentioned that since these burgers were made with ground bison I had added bacon fat so that they wouldn't be too lean. His comment was along the lines of "Where did you get the bacon fat from?"......... we like his wife so we still socialize but it's never going to be the same.