ARE BACON AND EGGS AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE??

For those of you who are lovers of bacon and eggs, whether they are on a plate by themselves or on a roll (with or without cheese), I am fairly certain that you may have at least once wondered how this delectable pairing came to be. While I have personally always been a huge fan of the combo and have even considered writing a book about the history of bacon, I always assumed that the cowboys and settlers of the West ate bacon and eggs regularly. I jumped to this conclusion because every Western I watched growing up depicted them frying eggs and bacon in a cast-iron skillet over an open fire. Because of this, I believed the duo was as American as apple pie.

My research team has advised me that pigs have been domesticated in the U.S. since colonial times and that pork meat, brined and salted, was part of the diet of our citizens in the 1700s and 1800s. Thus, I was shocked to learn that bacon did not meet its mate—the egg—until the 1920s.

Sacre bleu! How can it be that bacon and eggs are only a little more than a century old? Well, it appears that the pairing was not organic, but rather, was the work of an advertising genius. In reality, the bacon-and-egg partnership is no more American than the creation of a latte with oat milk by Starbucks. It was simply a marketing scheme formulated to sell more bacon.

It appears that a gentleman by the name of Edward Bernays (a nephew of Sigmund Freud) was adept at using psychology to convince people to purchase a product or idea. For example, he held the first known “pancake breakfast” for a political event. On behalf of the American Dental Association, he helped convince Americans in between bites of slapjacks and maple syrup that adding fluoride to our water was healthy and safe. Apparently, in the 1920s, Bernays was hired by a producer of pork products (Beech-Nuts) to increase the consumer demand for bacon. Bernays utilized the medical industry to convince Americans that a bigger and heavier breakfast was healthier and more beneficial to them. The old “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” sales pitch was employed in newspapers and magazines by members of the medical profession simply to sell the bacon-andeggs concept. Within a few years, bacon and eggs became a breakfast staple in American households.

Can you imagine physicians today encouraging the mass consumption of bacon? Like so many other products (for example, breakfast cereals and soft drinks) we have been indoctrinated to make bacon and eggs part of our lifestyle. It is akin to having a cheeseburger with a coke, which has also always been heavily marketed.

In conclusion, what I believed to be a meal that was the essence of Americana is nothing more than a commercial scheme. What is next—John Wayne was born in Canada?

Anthony J. Enea, Esq., is the managing attorney of Enea, Scanlan and Sirignano, LLP of White Plains, New York. He focuses his practice on Wills, Trusts, Estates and Elder Law. Anthony is the Past Chair of the Elder Law and Special Needs Section of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) and is the past Chair of the 50+ Section of the NYSBA. He is a Past President and Founding member of the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA). Anthony is also a Past President of the Westchester County Bar Foundation and a Past President of the Westchester County Bar Association. He is also fluent in Italian. He can be reached at (914) 948-1500 or at a.enea@esslawfirm.com

Please note that any opinions expressed in the articles contained herein are solely those of the author(s) and do not constitute positions taken by the WCBA.