This whole article is a 1st-draft/stub. When I find the appropriate "Stub"-ish banner and learn to include it, I'll stick it up here. If you already know how, you can help by doing so. Thanks!


Baconmas is an annual holiday invented in 2007 by Santa Cruz County resident Ted Oliverio. It is a "faux holiday" or "new tradition" begun with the intent of having an annual event, most likely initially carried on by its creator but, perhaps (and hopefully!) extending to celebrations hosted by his circle of friends, and then their friends, and so on. The holiday is "officially" celebrated each year on first Saturday in August, although any day near August 1st would be equally acceptable. The main visible manifestation of Baconmas is the roasted whole pig, although its true purpose is to engage in a bit of self-indulgence with great food, great people, great weather and to just have a wonderful, great time. To that end, nearly any "sharing of the bounty" would be appropriate, although the name Baconmas was chosen to reflect the almost worship-worthy status that bacon has in our lives.

As should be obvious, the "mas" suffix is intended to evoke the idea of more sanctioned religeous holiday traditions. However, Baconmas is not recognized by any known church; it is strictly a secular indugance.

History

While Baconmas is a "made-up" holiday, its originators (both Ted and the collection of friends and neighbors who celebrated the first Baconmas together) fully intend to carry it on as an annual event in the hopes of establishing a more widely celebrated "tradition."

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Traditions

The traditional Baconmas greeting in America is "Felize Baconmas", although there is certainly no reason why "Happy Baconmas", "Merry Baconmas" or "Good Baconmas to you, my fine sir [or madam]" should not be equally acceptable. The "Felize Baconmas" construct was initially coined by Ken Dixon of [news:alt.smokers.cigars ASC]

The first Baconmas

The invitiation for the first Baconmas celebration opened with the following text:
:: And an angel appeared unto them saying 'behold! I bring you glad tidings of great joy -- and also some really delicious pork products. Try the jowls; everybody thinks they sound weird, but they're the best part of the whole pig -- even better than bacon!' And the wise men were afraid, but did as they were told, eating of the pig, and there was much rejoicing!"

: Come help us celebrate Baconmas! We'll be roasting a pig, plus the usual assortment of hors d' oveurs, cigars, booze, soda and whatnot.

Which pretty-much set the tone for the event and the soon-to-be annual tradition. The idea was to spend an enjoyable day doing enjoyable things with enjoyable people -- to indulge in celebration of all the wonderful things life gives us.

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Celebrating your own Baconmas

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Creating a portable Baconmas oven

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Where to get whole pigs

Check your local yellow pages under Meat. Any place where you can get a whole ham (unprepared), a side of beef or similar can probably also get you a whole roasting pig. For freshness, they often have to order from their supplier, so give a few days advanced notice. (I typically call a week in advance, they tell me "call back 3 days before party", and I do that.)

On the internet. Enter:
: whole.roasting.pig buy
into your favorite search engine (such as Google.)

Make sure to tell them that you want your pig complete with head, ears, tail & hooves. You want a "whole, cleaned roasting pig, with all the parts." This is for presentation. Some people think that having dinner on the table with its head attached is disturbing. I can tell you for a fact that it's MORE disturbing to see a whole pig, decapitated! The ears & tail really do add to the overall look, and it's quite elegant, even in a BBQ-esque setting.

Your pig should come (this is common, but verify with your vendor when you order!) with all the hair and innards removed, ready to be roasted and eaten without much additional preparation. (However, see the section on preparation/recipes for more information.) Our first pig still had his kidneys attached (I suppose some people like that part), while the first Baconmas pig did not. These minor details vary by vendor.

Internet pigs are shipped frozen, typically via next-day-air, and take 24-48 hours to thaw. Yes, you will receive a box with a whole pig in it. When the delivery person asks "what the heck is IN here?!" you can say "why, a pig, of course! Felize Baconmas!" :)

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Roasting a pig

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Other baconmas recipes

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References

This article has no references, in part because there are no references -- Baconmas was invented just a few weeks before -- and the first one celebrated the day before -- the writing of this article. This article was, however, initially authored by the creator of Baconmas, and one could argue that he is the ultimate authority on the subject.

Note, however, that a quick Google search on Baconmas yielded, at this time, 6 references. A cursory glance at the returned results gave the impression that they were all from people who enjoy a good plate of bacon on Christmas, and had made the congnitive slip from "Christmas" to "Baconmas." There is no relation to that phenomenon and this Baconmas.

[Disambiguation page? Probably a bit grandiose, at this point.]