Three bacons: Kevin, Francis and the awesome food

July 8 is actor Kevin Bacon’s birthday. While his birthday alone is worth noting – he is an iconic figure onscreen, and there is that “Six Degrees” game – Bacon’s birthday reminds us of another iconic Bacon: the ever-influential Francis Bacon. Furthermore, one cannot help but think of the same-named food, which perhaps most Bacons actually ate (although who knows if bacon would have been served to a 16th/17th century politician). Here’s a rundown of all three bacons.

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (who a quick Google search will reveal is not related to Kevin Bacon) was an English politician and natural philosopher best known as a father of empiricism and the scientific method. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s lengthy entry on Bacon, he was a lawyer, politician and writer. At the peak of his political career, he was Lord Chancellor to King James I and a viscount. However, he was accused of corruption and fell from power. For the remaining years of his life, he focused on his writings on natural philosophy, which are extremely influential.

The idea of a collaborative research institution, for instance, is often credited to Bacon. It was his writings that influenced similar research structures in the later-established Royal Society. Most notably, however, is Bacon’s willingness to overthrow the giants of science at the time. Much of natural philosophy was based on writings of Aristotle and other ancient philosophers. Bacon is noted for disagreeing with Aristotle’s manner for acquiring knowledge, which is called deduction, whereby one founds an assertion on a series of axioms taken to be true (“men are mortal” and “Aristotle is a man,” therefore “Aristotle is mortal”).

Bacon put forth the idea of induction, whereby a series of observations are used to indicate a probable generality (“the sun has risen in the East for all observed time, so it rises in the East”).

Kevin Bacon

The actor has been in a lot of movies in a lot of different genres, most often as a character actor. He began as a stage actor, waiting tables before (and after) making his film debut in “National Lampoon’s Animal House” as Chip (“Please, sir, may I have another!”). His role as one of the counselors in the classic horror film “Friday the 13th” is another notable role. Some of Bacon’s other popular appearances include “JFK,” “Footloose,” “Flatliners,” “Wild Things” and “X-Men: First Class.” See Further Review on Page 2 of Serendipity for a more-detailed series of Kevin Bacon Movies.

Bacon also is known for being the central figure in and inspiration for the popular movie trivia game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” The game is simple: It posits that any actor can be connected to Kevin Bacon by at most six degrees of separation. For example, Mark Wahlberg and Steve Carell were both in “Date Night,” while Carell and Bacon were in “Crazy, Stupid, Love” together, so Wahlberg has a Bacon number of two and Carell a Bacon number of one. Bacon is the only person in the world with a Bacon number of zero.

The game is to connect, with as few connections as possible, a given actor/actress to Bacon or state how Bacon is connected to an actor/actress. It is extremely difficult! While initially he thought the game was a joke at his expense, Bacon has embraced the game as an illustration of how we are all connected and started a charity called sixdegrees.org. He played a BuzzFeed trivia version of the game and got most of the answers wrong.

Bacon

Bacon is perhaps America’s favorite food – unless you are vegetarian/vegan, of course – and is popular in one form or another all over the world. Generally, bacon is cured pork belly or back, which is then smoked or cooked. American bacon is usually back bacon and most often prepared in the oven or a frying pan on a stove top. It can be found almost anywhere in the U.S. as a breakfast staple, lunchtime BLT or on a burger for dinner. Our “Canadian” bacon is back cuts instead of belly, hence its lower fat content.

Cured pork has been found as far back as ancient China thousands of years ago. The methods likely traveled west and found their way into the Roman Empire, and then into the rest of the world, which is why bacon and its ancestors are a truly global food. That said, Americans have adopted a fanatical adoration of the food. It has become an almost aggressive part of American identity.

A crucial part of the American diner, the American breakfast and a demonstration of rebellion against health nuts, bacon is a really big deal. Bacon-flavored ice cream, breath mints and more can be found in various shops across the country, elevating the cured-cooked pig meat to the level of a long-term cultural phenomenon.