Is there any ingredient more beloved than bacon? The smell of bacon sizzling in the morning has got more people out of bed than the loudest alarm clock. It's a must-have in a BLT, turkey club, Cobb salad...you name it. But Kaminsky and Rama take it to new recipe heights, whether chopped and sauteed and used as a flavouring - much as you would garlic - or in chunks, strips, potted, baked, or flavourful crumbles as a finishing touch. Perfect in Crispy Polenta Bites with Sun-Dried Tomato Spread, Onion Soup with Bacon and Baguette Croutons, French Toast Bread Pudding with Bacon and Cinnamon, Pork Roast with Bacon, Fennel, and Black Mission Figs, and Crusted Salmon with Avocado and Red Onion Salad, Velvety Chicken Topped with Rosemary-Bacon Biscuits. And to finish off a meal, and Caramelized Pears with Candied Bacon Chips or Apple-Bacon Coffee Cake with Bourbon-Pecan Glaze.

BACON NATION by Peter Kaminsky and Marie Rama, can be read as a cookbook or a manifesto, the culinary version of Robert Bly's Iron John. Bacon is the double-down option for meat lovers. It is fatty. It is salty. It is wrong in every way, but it feels so right. It is, the authors argue, a national treasure: To our way of thinking, bacon is the equal of pricey Perigord truffles, sybaritic Spanish saffron and conspicuously consumed Caspian caviar. They go on to make a persuasive case in recipes that respect their prime ingredient and use it inventively. Their opening bid -- bacon slices twisted and cooked into crisp spirals, so they can be used as savory swizzle sticks for bloody marys. This is brilliant. The only question is, why did it take so long?

Kaminsky and Rama don't just throw bacon at the wall to see if it sticks. They proceed judiciously, deploying it as flavor punctuation here, a condiment there and sometimes as a powerful equal partner, its role in their recipe for tournedos of beef wrapped in bacon and sage leaves. Bacon isn't subtle, but it can be used discreetly. The bacon broth in their poached halibut recipe, for example, is an enveloping flavor atmosphere. Sometimes, in fact, the authors show too much delicacy. Their bacon, brisket and beer chili, a-hoppin' and a-poppin' with herbs and spices, is superior chili but a little shy in one department. It needs -- can it be? -- more bacon.

-The New York Times Book Review

Peter Kaminsky is the author and coauthor of many books, including Pig Perfect, Culinary Intelligence, and Seven Fires and Mallmann on Fire (with Francis Mallmann). He is a longtime contributor to Food & Wine and a former columnist for the New York Times and New York magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

• Marie Rama is a recipe developer, food writer, and coauthor of Cooking Basics for Dummies and Grilling for Dummies. She lives in Yonkers, New York.