{"id":3032,"date":"2022-11-04T10:18:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T14:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2025-05-26T11:20:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T15:20:37","slug":"dr-mark-johnson-talks-bacon-at-profs-pints-in-nashville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/2022\/11\/04\/dr-mark-johnson-talks-bacon-at-profs-pints-in-nashville\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Mark Johnson Talks Bacon at Profs & Pints in Nashville"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The content of this post was taken from the Profs & Pints website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Profs & Pints Nashville: Looking Back at Bacon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WEDNESDAY,\u00a0NOVEMBER 16\u00a02022<\/strong> 6:30 PM\u00a0\u2014\u00a09:00 PM\u00a0CDT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Profs and Pints Nashville<\/a> presents: \u201cLooking Back at Bacon,\u201d<\/strong> a social history of one of our nation\u2019s guiltiest pleasures, with Mark A. Johnson<\/a>, lecturer in history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and author of the forthcoming book American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get ready for a scholarly talk that\u2019s going to sizzle.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Image: Bacon lovers were featured in a 1946 Dupont cellophane ad boasting of how well the clear wrap shows off the meat\u2019s leanness. [From Profs & Pints]<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Food historian Mark Johnson is coming Nashville\u2019s Fait La Force taproom to talk about bacon and America\u2019s conflicted and shifting relationship with it. If you have never delved into \u201cmicro history,\u201d which uses the history of very specific things to tell broader stories and offer big insights, you\u2019re in for a treat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once a mundane breakfast staple, bacon is now regard as a symbol, a pop-culture phenomenon, and culinary powerhouse. Our obsession with it, Dr. Johnson will explain, defies simple taste in terms of its chemical makeup of fat, salt, and protein, and provides insight into our ever-changing relationship with the industrial food system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll learn from this talk, which traces the history of bacon from the nineteenth century to the present moment, how bacon has been both a mundane staple and luxurious indulgence, both the cheapest part of the big and the most expensive. It has received the blame for obesity and cancer and been lauded as the solution to both those conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1977, the U. S. Department of Agriculture almost banned bacon, as it is full of the fat and cholesterol that doctors had started linking to heart disease and obesity and with nitrates that chemists had been linking with cancer. Policymakers characterized bacon as the \u201cmost dangerous food in the supermarket.\u201d Trying to keep sales alive at a time of fear of fat, bacon producers sought to follow dietary trends, marketing bacon as uniform, efficient, convenient, lean, and scientifically processed. The effort to maintain its status as a staple food failed miserably, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What helped revive bacon was the Atkins diet of the 1990s and 2000s and then the emergence of bacon consumption as a gesture of rebellion against the industrial food system, dietary advice, and the puritanical views of diet and health that our nation had generally held since the nineteenth century. Independent bacon producers achieved great success in generating demand by linking bacon to fat, craftsmanship, indulgence, and luxury and marketing it as a weekend treat and guilty pleasure. With bacon prices soaring, the consumption of it reinforced their class privilege and bourgeois tastes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of bacon in America sheds light on how a culture that worries so much about nutrition and health also has so many problems with chronic illness. You\u2019ll love taking in the knowledge served up by Dr. Johnson, who teaches courses on food, race, and culture and is the author of An Irresistible History of Alabama Barbecue.<\/em> (Advance tickets: $12 plus sales tax. Doors: $15, or $13 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Profs and Pints Nashville presents: \u201cLooking Back at Bacon,\u201d a social history of one of our nation\u2019s guiltiest pleasures, with Mark A. Johnson, lecturer in history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and author of the forthcoming book American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":800,"featured_media":3033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nDr. Mark Johnson Talks Bacon at Profs & Pints in Nashville - History Archive: Jul 2007 - Oct 2025<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/history\/2022\/11\/04\/dr-mark-johnson-talks-bacon-at-profs-pints-in-nashville\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dr. Mark Johnson Talks Bacon at Profs & Pints in Nashville - History Archive: Jul 2007 - Oct 2025\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Profs and Pints Nashville presents: \u201cLooking Back at Bacon,\u201d a social history of one of our nation\u2019s guiltiest pleasures, with Mark A. 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