Monday's Snackfood Wrap Up: Smokin' Bacon

Today I will be reivewing possibly delicious, unidentified snack 'Smokin' Bacon'.

'Smokin Bacon', as seen on the shelf in a famished daze at 4:30 after a lunch spent searching for the shredded carrot mulch amongst two traditional squid dishes and a fusion squid dish, hold great promise.  "I taste like bacon," they say.  "I promise."

bay-ee-kahn chee

Their packaging presents a strong resumé.  If we romanize the prominent Korean on the package it reads bay-ee-kahn chee.  The first part makes me feel good anyway.  In the bottom left we see what is probably not a Mcnugget cage and probably is a barbeque.  Now I would say that bacon is not barbequed, that it's fried, but I'm no King of the Grill.  In a month I don't hardly medium rare anything.  So fairs fair, maybe for bacon in Korea it's grill or bust.  What I'm trying to say is THIS IS YOUR FREEBIE 'SMOKIN' BACON'.  And it's your only one.

Inspection of the merchandise reveals a fairly standard product.  The edible is a strain of puff of similiar consistency to the American puffed Cheeto.  The streaks of glittering red baco-flavour on the package are more earthly orangy browns, like the hard moist clay that I would dig up and disgard at recess in the third grade looking for rocks with shiny veins of desirable quartz.
Do they taste of bacon?  Vaguely.  They taste more like they remind you of bacon.  They taste like maybe you'd like some breakfast for dinner.  The best way I found to get these snacks to perform was to bite them up just a little bit and then grind them against your inner gum line until they disolve into a pulp.  You can then collect the pulp on your tongue and lather it onto the back of your throat. Breath calmly through your nose while it slides down to avoid reflexive choking or gaging. When I did this they would often taste their most baconish.



In the wild, the larger 'Smokin' Bacon' will have a 
greater chance to reproduce.

Closing Remark: The closest line I can draw between this snack and bacon is that both have increased my chances of heart disease.

That's all for today.  Please let me know if you have discovered any other applicable techniques; I still have to make it through the bag.

If you've already been here don't bother.

Lets take a walk. 

It's nice out.

Out the door, don't look back-

 - I said don't look back.  Eye's forward eyes forward I think that man's a spy.

Down my alley, take a look over the fence.  You won't see many yards in my neighborhood, but here's one.

Sometimes theres a hole in his little field when I come home late at night, but they're always filled in just perfectly by the time I get up for work.

I told you not to look back.  I had to agree to a pillar of salt clause in my contract just to sign the lease in that place and you're in jeapardy of putting me in default.  Lets just get out of here.

Here's where they throw the neighborhood parties.  Grandmas only though.  If you can't get into that party then I know the guy who works the door over at another place.

And if after hours is your scene, I know the spot.

For a good time, always look for the paddles.

These are busy streets and I'll leave you to them.

Down here and take a left.

Look both ways.

As you cross, look to your left.  We're surrounded by those mountains.

All the action is down here, at Donga Department store.

East meets West.

As always, it's the kids who suffer.  Mostly from me, in this case.

Shy.

Not shy.

My rock-paper-scissors nemisis.  Every day we battle.  Here he is caught in aggresive trash talk.  He often ryhmes my name with 'tile' in derision.

At night I go to the roof.  I'll leave you up there.

Good night.  Don't worry, it's warm.

Today I felt pretty hard

I am a peaceful man.  Once I was called a gentle giant by an eight year old.  I was so touched that I did not hit him for his sloppy cliché. The point though, is that when there is need, I am capable.

Today we began class by arranging the desks into groups of four.  I was in the middle of the shuffling desks when behind me, the boy charged.  He began to shove another student, who was seated, into his desk, punching him in the back and in the head.  He wabbled furiously in Korean.  He was not being jockular.  In school, as far as I can tell, students are allowed to fight each other up to the point of moderate bleeding as long as they are smiling.  There were no smiles here though, only a vicious ape-grin as one boy dominated the other.  I stepped between them and told the attacker, "you aren't hitting him."  It was a very idealistic thing to say, as he'd just hit him repeatedly.  So intense was this boys furry though, that he attempted to get around me.  Me!  An unwise move for any twelve year old, especially a pudgy one so clearly lacking in agility.  His disregard insulted me on a very basic level and in my head I could hear my fight music.

I took him, quite gently, under his chin with my hand and brought my face down to his level so that he was forced to look me in the eyes and acknowledge my status as wall and supreme arbiter in this altercation, but again he tugged away, trying to maintain sight on his target and talk more trash. 

That was it.

I clamped me hands down on his arms just above the elbows, effectively ending the little tyrant's reign of fists.  My coteacher was still busy directing traffic on the other side of the class.  "Mrs. Yi," I called to her, "this boy really wants to fight."  Mrs. Yi dragged the gangster into the hallway and likely beat him.  I didn't go out to watch, but stayed in the classroom and began the lesson, imagining myself starring along side Michelle Pfeiffer in the Gangster's Paradise driven 1995 blockbuster that was 'Dangerous Minds'.

If you prick me do I not avoid confrontation?

Am I not human?  Old woman, when you sit behind me on the bus and punch me with your tiny stone fists do I not act surprised?  Do I not cover up the pain with a smile because I don't speak Korean as you do? Do I not close the window because even though I don't know what you're saying, it seems reasonable that you might be asking me to close the window as it's open all the way and you might not like all that wind in your face?  Am I not disapointed when you hit me again with that fist that comes with so much mustard into my back for a woman of your age?  Do I not share your sense of failure when you finally give up on whatever point you were trying to make for the past five minutes and waive me away?

I do.  I'm telling you that I do, and that I am. 

Human that is.

You could be more like the couple that points so closely at my leg hair that they nudge it.  It's gentle at least.