I’m about to make a confession of which I am not proud: I love TV. I don’t think I loved TV before TiVo and DVRs, but now, like Depeche Mode, I just can’t get enough. And with the Discovery Channel, Food Network, Comedy Central, Travel Channel, Independent Film Channel, Gilmore Girl re-runs and the NBC Thursday night line-up…well, I get a little light-headed just thinking about it. So I’m a foodaholic who loves TV and bacon. I’m sure some of you are drawing your own conclusions about me even now.
Oh well. This week I saw a couple of prominent bacon features during my favorite shows. First, Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods fame was in Paris and his friend made him Bacon & Eggs ice cream. That sounds gross to me because I don’t want my ice cream to taste like eggs, but the point seemed to be that he started with a custard base instead of just cream and sugar. To make it extra special, he sprinkled uncooked bacon with brown sugar and cooked it in the oven for a nice, candied finish. Once the ice cream was mixed and frozen to a soft-serve consistency, he diced and added the bacon. His friend’s 3-year old thought it was awesome, and that’s all the recommendation I need.
Next, Sarah Silverman, my favorite Queen of the Random and Offensive, noted that “bacon spelled backward is no cab.” This was a totally random comment to her dog, Doug, but for reasons known only to myself, I had already noticed the backward spelling of bacon. And it weirded me out a little that she thought to mention it.
For the record, I like to read, too. Alot. I swear! But unless you’re reading a cookbook, where are you going to run into bacon entertainment like this? Maybe that’s my new project…finding the best literary references to bacon. And there are about a million of you bacon fans out there, so help me out, peeps!
Mission: Literary Bacon. Go!
I know there is a book out there about sex and bacon, I think it has to do with over indulgence, but right after reading your post I went back to reading Light Fantastic from Terry Pratchett and I got to this part
“Rincewind sniffed. This rock smelt of frying. The smell seemed to be coming from up ahead, and appealed straight to his stomach.
‘Can you smell anything?’ he said.
‘I think it’s bacon,’ said Twoflower.
‘I hope it’s bacon,’ said Rincewind, ‘because I’m going to eat it.’ He stood up on the trembling stone and tottered forward into the clouds, peering through the wet gloom.
At the front or leading edge of the rock a small druid was sitting crosslegged in front of a small fire. A square of oilskin was tied across his head and knotted under his chin. He was poking at a pan of bacon with an ornamental sickle.
‘Um,’ said Rincewind. The druid looked up, and dropped the pan into the fire. He leapt to his feet and gripped the sickle aggressively, or at least as aggressively as anyone can look in a long wet white nightshirt and a dripping headscarf.
‘I warn you, I shall deal harshly with hijackers,’ he said, and sneezed violently.
‘We’ll help,’ said Rincewind, looking longingly at the burning bacon. This seemed to puzzle the druid who, to Rincewind’s mild surprise, was quite young; he supposed here had to be such things as young druids, theoretically, it was just that he had never imagined them.
‘You’re not trying to steal the rock?’ said the druid, lowering the sickle a fraction.
‘I didn’t even know you could steal rocks,’ said Rincewind wearily.
‘Excuse me,’ said Twoflower politely, ‘I think your breakfast is on fire.’
The druid glanced down and flailed ineffectually at the flames. Rincewind hurried forward to help, there was a fair amount of smoke, ash and confusion, and the shared triumph of actually rescuing a few pieces of rather charred bacon did more good than a whole book on diplomacy.”
So this is the only mention of bacon in the book, but it was a funny coincidence. I’ll keep my eyes out for more literary bacon. There is a play going on about bacon somewhere in southern California, I think, we just wrote about it last week.
Hope this helps
Alexa, that was amazing. I especially love the last sentence. I was really hoping that I’d run into something right away in the book I’m reading, but you totally beat me to it. Do they ever mention bacon in The Grapes of Wrath??
I don’t know about the grapes of wrath, but I think I vaguely remember a campfire and cooking so there is hope. Just thought I’d let you know too that Heather from bacon unwrapped is currently in the editing process for her bacon book which I believe will be more about bacon and less about cooking with bacon.
Turns out they talked about bacon in Grapes of Wrath, like, constantly. It was the only meat besides ground beef that they ever ate, and it was especially important because it provided the grease for frying potatoes and making gravy or biscuits. So yeah. Those Joads loved them some bacon.