Bacon



The cured meat of a swine traditionally used in cooking throughout Anea, bacon is of particular significance in Soleilan culture in which it maintains a place of near divine importance. A staple in Soleilan cuisine, bacon can be eaten at any meal and at any course with dishes ranging from thick cut bacon and cider stew, to roasted bacon wrapped chicken, to the delectable dessert of baked bacon glazed with peach preserve. It also holds significant importance in the military for its inability to spoil over extended campaigns and as a source of nutrients. Additionally, Soleilans ascribe a wide range of medical uses for bacon: from treating a burn by wrapping bacon around the wound, to chewing on a piece of bacon basted in whiskey to soothe a toothache, to mixing residual bacon grease with beeswax to form a topically applied paste to protect against the sun. Aside from this, bacon is popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and, thusly, is traditionally given to Soleilan newlyweds. Moreover, Soleilans also mix together bacon fat, ash, and water to form soap - the first and only known use of soap in Osea. Furthermore, noblewomen lave bacon grease into their hair to obtain the luster for which Soleilan women are so famous for. Noblemen, too, would anoint themselves in bacon grease before battle so that their skin would glisten with the same radiance as the sun. Indeed, Soleilan veneration for bacon most likely stems not only from the numerous applications bacon has, but the nature of these applications; particularly in a society whose principal deity is the god of light, the ways in which bacon can be used to protect against the sun, absorb and reflect its light, heal burns, and provide life - both in terms of nourishment and reproductively - gives it a near consecrated denotation.

To date, bacon still retains a significant role in territories once under the dominion of the Soleilan Empire and abroad - notably The Independent Republic of Directus whose Town of Bacon derived its name after the cured meat. The town having begun as a minor trading post in northern Directus which eventually grew into the center through which all of the bacon from Yuktobania entered the much more profitable Directian market; thus allowing the post of only a few dozen to explode into a town of 15,470 inhabitants in only a few short years. Consequently, the Town of Bacon is called so not only because bacon is its chief import/export, but because the warehouses filled with the ware waft the streets in its odor so that even the stray dogs are perfumed with its scent. Hence, one can identify residents of Bacon by their smell alone.

Unsurprisingly, the only Osean nation to view bacon as little more than a food item to be consumed on an irregular basis if at all, is Yuktobania which remained independent from the Soleilan Empire.