First-ever BaconFest arrives Saturday at Highland Brewing in Asheville; pig out!

Share
Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

BaconFest_2013Press release here. Sort of wishing I’d gotten a ticket. Sounds like fun:

WHAT: BaconFest Asheville, a first-time festival showcasing unique pork and bacon creations. This sold-out event will bring together about 900 bacon-lovers of all ages with area chefs and specialty food producers who will enter dishes, both sweet and savory, to compete for “Best Overall Dish or Top Hog” plus “The Most Outrageous Use of Bacon/Pork” and “Best Bacon.” Winners will be determined by the voting of festival attendees.

WHEN: Saturday, August 31 – 1-4 pm

WHERE: Highland Brewing Company Outdoor Meadow, located at 12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Asheville. **See directions below**

WHO: The festival is a project of 105.9 The Mountain (WTMT) in partnership with Highland Brewing Company, which is brewing a special bacon-infused version of their classic Black Mocha Stout just for the occasion. Blue Ridge Food Ventures, a nonprofit agribusiness job-creation program of AdvantageWest, will receive proceeds from the event. The Sons of Ralph will perform and lead a “pig pickin’” with local musicians. A list of participating restaurants is below.

WHY: This inaugural celebration of swine sold out weeks ahead of the event. Is that because the “gateway meat” is simply too delicious to pass up – whether served in a sizzling, savory snack or as the surprise ingredient in sweet treats like gelato and doughnuts? Or is it because area festival-goers are always hungry to pig out – and with the cancellation of the LAAFF festival (a Labor Day weekend tradition), here’s a new, lip-smackin’ way to go hog wild? Whatever the case, the afternoon is sure to be the first of an annual, must-taste tradition.

Participating Restaurants/Food Vendors: Ambrozia Bar & Bistro, Blue Ridge Food Ventures, Café Azalea, Cakes by Jane, Cecilia’s Kitchen, Chophouse, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, Earthfare, Hickory Nut Gap Farm Meats, Hillbilly Cotton Candy, Lexington Avenue Brewery, Little Pigs BarBQue, Moe’s Original BarBQue, The Southern Kitchen & Bar, Sugar & Snow Gelato, Sunny Point Café, Vincenzo’s Restorante & Bistro, Vortex Doughnuts, Zia Taqueria.

Other vendors: BluBus Screenprinting, New Morning Gallery, Proformance Vitamin Hydration, Summit CrossFit, and Tech Suavvy,

Tags::
Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

8 Comments

  1. Paul September 4, 2013

    First of all, animals were put on this earth for me to eat. That’s why God made them so doggone tasty. I bet you’re pro abortion though. Aren’t you? Part of the compassionate left huh? I believe in animal welfare, not animal rights. I don’t want them to suffer cruelty or mistreatment before they are butchered and put on a plate.

    Reply
  2. Stewart September 4, 2013

    Get a life? Do you mean live a life insensitive to the suffering of others? No thanks. It would mean ignoring Dr. King’s advice: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

    How about you giving some thought to not taking the lives of others? The Golden Rule tells us to “do unto others…”

    Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, offered the following: “As long as human beings go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace. There is only one little step from killing animals to creating gas chambers a la Hitler and concentration camps a la Stalin. There will be no justice as long as a man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.”

    Seems to make sense to me.

    Reply
  3. Stewart August 31, 2013

    “As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.”

    A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.”

    Leo Tolstoy

    “Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to humankind.”

    “Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.” Albert Schweitzer

    “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
    Albert Einstein

    No single food choice has a farther-reaching and more profoundly positive impact on our health, the environment, and all of life on Earth than adopting a plant-based diet. To learn more, watch Glass Walls (narrated by Paul McCartney) at http://www.meat.org.

    Reply
    1. Paul September 4, 2013

      I just devoured a 16 oz. T-Bone in your honor.

      Reply
  4. Terri David August 29, 2013

    Those factory farms in eastern NC are pumping out pigs to supply this event. Is there any concern by the organizers, promoters, or attendees regarding the animal cruelty, the cesspools of hog waste polluting the rivers, the land, and the air, and the artery clogging fat in bacon? How many so called “environmentalists” will be participating with no thought to the carbon footprint of producing bacon? Climate change is serious and yet people’s behavior has not changed to mitigate the damage. Our health care system has collapsed and people still eat all the wrong things. And, obviously, there is no compassion whatsoever for the pigs who are tortured and sacrificed for the fleeting pleasure of humans. Humans are truly an idiotic species and deserve what they have created. We are doomed.

    Reply
    1. Skeletor August 30, 2013

      So…I guess we won’t be seeing you there? eh?

      Reply
      1. Jason Sandford August 30, 2013

        I’m gonna be there after all.

        Reply
    2. Paul September 3, 2013

      Oh Gawd. Please get a life.

      Reply

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.