No pigs were harmed in the making of this bacon

I'm eating Dawn the Yorkshire pig and she's quite tasty. But don't worry. She's doing perfectly fine, traipsing around a sanctuary in upstate New York. (Word is that she appreciates belly rubs and sunshine.) I'm in San Francisco, at an Italian joint just south of Golden Gate Park, enjoying meatballs and bacon not made of meat in the traditional sense but of plants mixed with "cultivated" pork fat.

Dawn, you see, donated a small sample of fat, which a company called Mission Barns got to proliferate in devices called bioreactors by providing nutrients like carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins – essentially replicating the conditions in her body. Because so much of the flavor of pork and other meats comes from the animal's fat, Mission Barns can create products like sausages and salami w