Lorraine Eaton
Category: Food
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Why the bum rap for bacon?
26
Aug 08
9:07 AM
Over dinner last night, conversation turned, as it often does, to bacon.
One of our dining companions – without the slightest sigh – pondered giving up real bacon altogether in favor of turkey bacon. Now I’ve got nothing against turkey bacon, but it’s no substitute for the real thing.
Personally, I think bacon has gotten a bum rap. It’s one of the finest seasonings around. Heck, our country was raised on pork seasoned beans and soups and rice. If your kin is of the Southern persuasion, your body is probably 2 or 3 percent bacon.
As usual, the bum rap comes from substance abuse. Fast food burgers with six slices of bacon, a “sandwich” made from bacon and Krispy Kreme donuts, people who eat a whole pound for breakfast.
Others try to be inventive. My colleague, Malcolm Venable, recently sent me an e-mail for a website that taunted New York Magazine for touting a recipe for a bacon-infused Manhattan cocktail. The elixir features bacon fat, bourbon and maple syrup.
No thank you, not today.
But there are plenty of bona fide culinary uses for bacon, probably more than you ever thought (including, I admit it, eating it right off the paper-towel covered plate). I learned this last December when I reviewed a volume titled, simply, “The Bacon Cookbook.”
Consider “Key West Conch and Bacon Stew.” Or “English Bacon and Cheddar Bread.” Or “Guacamole and Bacon Canapes.”
This time of year, I like to pinch a few fat, slightly sweet figs off the tree in my side yard (sorry neighbor!), quarter them, and wrap them in a cooked slice of bacon with a light schmear of blue cheese.
Bacon. It’s really nothing to be scared of. In fact, that fig thing I just mentioned? It’s divine.
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turkey bacon
If you have high blood pressure, turkey bacon is bad for you, too. It has a lot of sodium in it, just to make it barely edible.
MMMM nitrates
MMMM nitrates
Bacon
Bacon, of course, is the food of the Gods and Genteel Southerners, and there are those that would deny its wonders to mere humans.
We folks that were Southern raised know full well how much Crispy Bacon, Cat Head Biscuits with Gravy, Scrambled Eggs, and lots of hot Coffee can jump start one in the frosty winter mornings of the South.
Truth be said, we have tried to keep the wonders of Bacon a secret but, alas it is out in the open now so the food Cops might just make it illegal. :)
I can see the Cops pulling folks over and demanding to know; Lady, you got Bacon hidden in that Car? :)
Bacon is really bad for you
Bacon is about 70 percent fat, most of it saturated, plus it is loaded with cholesterol and sodium. It also contains nitrates, which have been linked to cancer. So, yes, it is something to be scared of.