Bacon Bits.

I have realised this week that one girl’s strange and intriguing may be another’s ordinary and uninteresting, so it may be that you have not been excited by the examples of unusual ideas for using up everyday ingredients. Today may be one of those ho-hum days for some of you, as bacon is my theme. If I may judge from the number of articles and blog posts on it, and the intensity of the passion in those articles, it seems that there is a vast number of folk for whom bacon is – dare I say it? – almost a religion. Sadly, I cannot compete with the concepts of bacon ice-cream and bacon cocktails, to which I have recently been enlightened thanks to the mysteries of cyberspace. Nevertheless, I hope you like my choices for the day.

Strips of bacon are a natural wrapping material. Some time ago I posted on the topic of Angels on Horseback (or Pigs in Blankets), which in my world of the early ‘70s were prunes wrapped in bacon and grilled. In some of your worlds, they are oysters similarly wrapped and cooked. To a few lucky or indecisive souls, the bacon wraps around prunes stuffed with oysters. The idea of wrapping something sweet or savoury (or both) in bacon is not new, of course, a good idea is always an old idea tweaked.

Substitute the prunes or oysters with cherries or eel, and you have a couple of nice new-old takes on the concept of bacon wraps.

To roste Eels with Bacon.

Take great Eels, and scour them well, and throw away the Heads, gut them, and cut them into pieces, then cut some fat Bacon very thin, and wrap them in it, and some Bay leaves, and so tie them fast to the Spit, and roste them, and baste them well with Claret Wine and Butter, and when they are enough, dredge them over with grated bread, and serve them with Wine, Butter, and Anchovies. Garnish your Dish as you please.

Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet, (1672) HannahWolley.

Cerises au Lard, Cherries with Bacon.

Use bright red tinned cherries; stone them and macerate them two hours in Worcester sauce. Roll two of them in finely cut back of bacon, skewer them together with wooden toothpicks. Grill them till bacon crisps and serve the rolls on fried oblong croutons. Garnish dish with bouquet of parsley.

The Times (London, England), June 16, 1939

Quotation for the Day.

Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know.

Groucho Marx.