Bacon mania
What type of online club has Bobby Flay endorsed?
Bacon
 mania. The United States and Canada have seen an increase in the popularity of bacon and bacon related recipes, dubbed "bacon mania". The sale of bacon in the U.S. has increased significantly since 2011. Sales climbed 9.5% in 2013, making it an all-time high of nearly $4 billion in U.S. In a survey conducted by Smithfield, 65% of Americans would support bacon as their "national food." Dishes such as bacon explosion, chicken fried bacon, and chocolate-covered bacon have been popularised over the internet, as has using candied bacon. Recipes spread quickly through both countries' national media, culinary blogs, and YouTube. Restaurants have organized and are organizing bacon and beer tasting nights, "The New York Times" reported on bacon infused with Irish whiskey used for Saint Patrick's Day cocktails, and celebrity chef Bobby Flay has endorsed a "Bacon of the Month" club online, in print, and on national television. Commentators explain this surging interest in bacon by reference to what they deem American cultural characteristics. Sarah Hepola, in a 2008 article in Salon.com, suggests a number of reasons, one of them being that eating bacon in the modern, health-conscious world is an act of rebellion: "Loving bacon is like shoving a middle finger in the face of all that is healthy and holy while an unfiltered cigarette smoulders between your lips." She also suggests bacon is sexy (with a reference to Sarah Katherine Lewis' book "Sex and Bacon"), kitsch, and funny. Hepola concludes by saying that "Bacon is American". Alison Cook, writing in the "Houston Chronicle", argues the case of bacon's American citizenship by referring to historical and geographical uses of bacon. Early American literature echoes the sentiment—in Ebenezer Cooke's 1708 poem "The Sot-Weed Factor", a satire of life in early colonial America, the narrator already complains that practically all the food in America was bacon-infused.