I understand that my taste buds must comply with certain fairness laws or else the American Civil Liberties Union will intervene, but I’d prefer to rent more space on my tongue to salty and sweet, leaving sour and bitter to double up in the sub-basement.

Sure, I enjoy bitter coffee, and occasionally I need a sour gum ball, but right now in my desk I have half a bag of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms, half a 10-ounce tub of Dark Chocolate Covered Macadamia Nuts from Trader Joes, and another 10-ounce tub of Dark Chocolate Chipolte Hazelnuts also from Trader Joes — and not a Sour Patch Kids to be found.



I take notice of salty and sweet combinations, so word of combining bacon with chocolate piqued my interest, especially when it includes a South Sound connection. People may scoff, but smoky, salty breakfast meat covered in chocolate makes better sense to me than dipping bitter dried cherries in the stuff.



Locally, bacon and chocolate unite inside the Chocolate Bacon Bar. The nearly square 2-ounce bars arrive wrapped in a tie-dye like package featuring the melding of sugar, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, cocoa powder processed with alkali, soya lecithin, soy flour, hydrogenated soy oil, natural and artificial flavor, dextrose caramel and salt. Produced in Tacoma by Happy Go Ducky, orders are available at chocolatebaconbar.com.



The creation began in a chocolate fountain during brunch, according to creator and former Lakes High School graduate Lisa Wearn.



“We were enjoying a brunch in Seattle and the yummy chocolate fountain — my friend dipped his bacon under the streaming chocolate and fell in love with the flavor,” says Wearn. “He quickly returned to the table, rounded up the remaining fellas and had to brag about his new invention. A few months later for his birthday I tried replicating the flavor and … voila! — Chocolate Bacon Bars were born.”



Wearn employs processed bacon bits rather than the real stuff for shelf life and durability. She’s selling only online currently; however a distribution network through coffee stands, gift shops and specialty stores goes into effect soon.



Wearn expects Good Morning America to feature her product on air during Valentines Day, in the meantime, she hears from customers on their adaptations of her bacon bar.

“It is fun to receive recipes from our customers on how they used the bars in homemade recipes for the holidays (pies and cookies), including cupcakes for a 50th birthday party, and as a topping on hamburgers (yes, hamburgers) for a football tailgate party,” Wearn adds. “One customer even tried to make a milkshake with our bars.”



If you need more inspiration, food concocting always tastes surreal inside Chef William Mueller’s laboratory. The owner of Babblin’ Babs Bistro in Tacoma’s Proctor District, Mueller approaches food with a mad scientist flair — so it came as no surprise to me that he has been combining chocolate and bacon for some time.



On his menu — chocolate-dipped bacon, maple-bacon ice cream, and peanut butter-bacon cookies.



Mueller recently told a reporter his chocolate-bacon cookie was a hit with customers.

“I didn’t tell a lot of people it was bacon underneath,” he said in the interview. “They said, ‘This is great. It has a smoky taste and chewy texture, what is it?’”



Want to make your own chocolate-bacon at home? These two sites offer step by step instructions with pictures: karagitz.blogspot.com or instructables.com.



Bacon and chocolate tastes great, but, when the day is done, I’m really your basic Peanut Buster Parfait man.