Mark A. Johnson with Adrian Miller Live at Tattered Cover

Schedule

Mon Jun 22 2026 at 06:00 pm to 08:00 pm

UTC-06:00
Location

Tattered Cover Colfax | Denver, CO

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Join us as we hear the culinary history of American bacon from author Mark A. Johnson!
About this Event

Mark A. Johnson is sharing his book on the four-century history of a gastronomic phenomenon in the United States on Monday, June 22nd at 6:00 PM at our Colfax location. He will be in conversation with local author, Adrian Miller.


Registration includes the following options:

  • A signed Hardcover copy of the book … OR
  • A $5 Gift Card to Tattered Cover Book Store


This event includes an opportunity to meet the author, participate in an audience Q&A after the conversation, and get your book signed and personalized. Photos with the author are welcome!


We will have a limited supply of additional books for guests to purchase in store. Only a book ticket guarantees you a copy of the book.


If you are unable to attend the event after purchasing a ticket, you are required to pick up your copy of the book (with proof of purchase from your event registration) within 7 days after the event date. If the book is not picked up by that date, you relinquish your copy to Tattered Cover Book Store.


ABOUT THE BOOK

In American Bacon, Mark A. Johnson asks (and answers) a seemingly simple question: How has bacon overcome centuries of religious prohibition, cultural contempt, and dietary advice to become a twenty-first-century culinary and cultural powerhouse?

Starting in early modern Britain and tracing the story of bacon through the colonial era, Civil War, Progressive Era, modern fad diets, and the emerging craft bacon industry, Johnson provides a new perspective on some familiar American narratives.

More than a story of production, marketing, and consumption, Johnson argues, this cultural history connects bacon to race, class, and gender while also illuminating major historical forces, such as migration, warfare, urbanization and suburbanization, reform movements, cultural trends, and globalization.

For Johnson, bacon’s story from “most dangerous food in the supermarket” to pop culture and gastronomic phenomenon reflects the cultural values of a nation.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARK A. JOHNSON, from Milwaukee, earned a PhD in history from the University of Alabama. Previously, he earned an MA from the University of Maryland and BA from Purdue University. He currently teaches at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and is the author of An Irresistible History of Alabama Barbecue: From Wood Pit to White Sauce and Rough Tactics: Black Performance in Political Spectacle, 1877–1932.


ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Adrian Miller — author of Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, which won a James Beard Foundation book award — is a certified Kansas City Barbecue Society judge and attorney who worked in the White House as a former special assistant to President Bill Clinton. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

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Where is it happening?

Tattered Cover Colfax, 2526 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

USD 7.25 to USD 42.74

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