Coconut Bacon.

For bacon lovers and coconut lovers: I give you this:

Coconut bacon.

For this breakfast dish fry some bacon and keep hot. Beat thoroughly one or two eggs, and allow to each egg one small tablespoon flour, 2 small tablespoons coconut, 3 tablespoons milk, a little pepper and salt. Mix well, and fry in bacon fat till brown. Cut into pieces pile on bacon, and serve hot.

The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.) September 6, 1950

Who’d have thought it? An interesting combination, Yes? I love coconut and I love bacon, and I may well try this.

If your tastes in coconut are rather more conservative, here are a few other recipes from Australian newspapers of the past:

Cocoanut Pie.

Two rich, somewhat extravagant, but delicious cocoanut pies can be made by following these directions: Grate one pint of fresh cocoanut quite fine; beat one quarter of a pound of butter and one of sugar to a cream-like froth; add a tumbler (of ordinary size) full of wine, strongly flavoured with rose water; stir in the cocoanut, and, lastly, put in the whites of five eggs beaten to a froth. Those pies should be baked in deep plates, with a thin lower crust.

The North Eastern Ensign (Victoria) March 2, 1883.

Cocoanut Pie.

Ingredients: One pint of milk, four ounces of desiccated cocoanut, sugar, two eggs, a lemon, a little butter, puff pastry. Method: Boil this milk, shake in the cocoanut and stir it well, let it boil for ten minutes. Pour it into a basin to cool, add the sugar, butter a grating of lemon-peel and a little of the juice, beat up the yolks of the eggs and add them. Line a pie-dish with puff pastry, put in the mixture and bake in a good oven for nearly an hour, whisk the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and add a little sugar. Put them over the top of the pie and let it just get slightly brown. Serve quickly.

Gippsland Times (Victoria) April 1, 1915

Coconut Bread Pudding

One cup breadcrumbs, 1 cup coconut, 1 pint milk, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, pinch salt, nutmeg, vanilla essence.

Soak the crumbs and coconut in the milk for 15 minutes. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, melted butter, and essence.

Pour into a well-greased pie-dish. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake in a moderate oven till the custard is set. Serve either hot or cold.

Australian Women’s Weekly, April 20, 1935