First Annual Bacon Bash – River Falls, Wisconsin

Bacon is a food which seems to bring people of all ages together. It’s what got all of the Bacon Scouts headed to River Falls, Wisconsin on September 8, 2013 for its first annual Bacon Bash held from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m..

The Bacon Bash was located in downtown River Falls on Elm Street between Main and Second and featured food vendors, merchandise vendors, and a children’s area. Admission to the event was free, but in order to try food you had to buy tickets for $1 each. Finding parking was easy as we were able to find free, on-street parking within a few blocks of the event.

We arrived at the crack of 11:00 a.m. and while there was not a large crowd immediately the scent of bacon lured in throngs of people. Bob Barns brought two of his children and headed over to the children’s area to play some games and paint piggy banks. There was even a small pen with real piglets! Zack and I headed to the food area to scout the bacon delicacies. Here are our findings.

• Cream Cheese Stuffed Jalapeño Wrapped in Bacon: Tasty, and not too spicy. The bacon and cream cheese seem to blunt the spiciness of the jalapeño.

  

• Maple Glazed Cinnamon Roll topped with Bacon: Huge and definitely tasty! Zack said, “It’s like having a pancake with bacon on top.” These are definitely big enough to split and share if you going to try many other foods.

  

• Bacon Hamburger: This one had bacon chopped up inside of the hamburger patty. Bob liked it a lot, but found it a bit greasy. (Too busy eating to get a picture.)
• Bacon on a Stick: A thick, foot long, meaty chunk of…meat which taste like…bacon!
• Bacon Salsa: We weren’t sure what to make of this one. It is a concoction of brussels sprouts, corn, and some other things on top of kettle chips topped with balsamic vinegar. We tried it a couple times and we could not finish it, it just wasn’t very good.

  

• Little Caesars Pizza topped with Bacon: Even the chain restaurants are getting in on the action. This was more popular than even Little Caesars imagined – they ran out quickly. We found this to be a good, safe treat for the kids amidst all of the exotic bacon-themed treats.

  

• Pig Wings: For us the pig wings were the star of the show. You had your choice of regular or hot sauce to dip these pork ribs shaped like chicken wings. Delicious!

Overall Impressions of 2013 River Falls Bacon Bash

There was plenty to do and see at the Bacon Bash including a full schedule of events including a pig calling contest, an eating contest, several other events lasting throughout the day. We stuck around until 12:30 and by that time we decided we had enough. While food tickets were only $1 each, the food vendors charged anywhere between 1 to 4 tickets for their concoctions. The ticket booths were located in the middle of the event. We felt that some overhead signage over the ticket booths would have been helpful. This was a cash only event and we would liked to have seen the ability to accept credit cards. With so many portable payment solutions out there such as Square and even PayPal we see no reason that this shouldn’t be available; it would certainly make it more convenient for those of us who do not carry cash.

We’re looking forward to being there next year and we hope to see you there.