Bacon Week: Part the Fifth.

World War II finally ended with the Armistice of 14 August 1945 (or with the formal surrender of Japan on 2nd September 1945), but rationing in Britain did not finally end until midnight on Saturday 26th September 1953. The total period of rationing in Britain was 13 years, 8 months, 2 weeks and 6 days - only slightly less than the 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, 17 hours, 32½ minutes of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition in the USA.

In many ways the post-war period was more dismal, food-wise, than it had been during the conflict, and it was indeed a lamentable situation when the ‘already meagre’ bacon ration was halved in mid-October 1947 – two years after the war’s end. The lament was sung poignantly in an article in The Times of that week that is also a hymn to the English bacon-based breakfast.

Lament for Bacon.

In a sombre world we miss more acutely those little flashes of happiness which can lighten the gloom, and so the halving from next Sunday of the already meagre bacon ration is a hard blow. Bacon is sweet at all times, but even as fruit is said to be golden in the morning, so is bacon for breakfast. It is then that it announces its coming by a subtle and pervasive odour. Then the householder stepping grumpily from the bathroom, with no enthusiasm at all for the day’s task, suddenly detects that fragrant herald and makes a scramble of his dressing. “Here’s to thee, bacon, “ he exclaims, dropping the capital letter and adapting his Calverley to his own ends, and rushes down to find it still hissing and sizzling on his plate. He may like it frizzled almost to dryness, so that it can be eaten not indelicately with the fingers, or he may prefer a more unctuous treatment, with rich juice that must be mopped up with bread lest a drop of the precious liquid be wasted. This is a matter of taste, but in either instance it makes the most heartening of starts to a new day. In the most famous of its alliances it is usually named second, but it is a mere accident of everyday talk, as in the case of Oxford and Cambridge. It implies no inferiority, and it is noteworthy that Mr. Wooster, no mean breakfaster, referred indifferently in his elliptical speech to the “e and bacon” and “the eggs and b.”

But indeed this comradeship with the egg is but one aspect of bacon’s character. It is the best mixer in the world and may be said, in a too well-worn phrase, to have a genius for friendship. The roast chicken looks lonely and miserable without those entrancing little rolls, of which the carver is tempted to appropriate an additional one to himself, as a reward for his labours. It is surely the bacon which gives to angels on horseback their celestial title. There is a certain greyness about liver or even kidneys when they lack their rosy companion. And then there is

Leicester beans and bacon, food of Kings!

Why the seventeenth century poet, Mr. William King attributed this divine dish to Leicester we do not know, but if that city originated a blessing which has since spread over the civilized world it would be ungrateful to grudge it the honour. With all its seductive charms bacon is so essentially innocent and virtuous that there is not sense of greed in loving it. Vegetarians have been known to make a tacit exception in its favour even as teetotallers do sometimes, by a curious process of mental gymnastics, in favour of port wine. Our allowance was paltry before and now it will be almost wholly illusory. It will be futile to try to spin it out. Far better to save our bacon for one breakfast of frenzied happiness in the fortnight, then smart in the fires of abstinence til the brief moment of repletion comes “slow, how slowly” round again.

For those unwilling to eat the whole, entire, complete bacon ration in one meal of ‘frenzied happiness”, the Ministry of Food gave some suggestions for eking it out in one of their post-war Food Facts leaflets.

Pan Hash.

- economical on your bacon ration, and a tasty way to use up cooked vegetables. Try the alternative flavourings too.
Ingredients (enough for 4): ½ lb cooked mashed potatoes, ½ lb, mixed cooked vegetables, chopped, 2 oz. chopped bacon, fried, salt and pepper.
Method: Mix all ingredients together, and fry the mixture in the fat from the cooked bacon on both sides till well-browned – about 15 minutes.
Note: if not cooked vegetables are available, 1 lb. mashed potatoes can be used.
Alternative flavourings to use instead of the bacon” (1) 2 oz. grated cheese (2) 2 oz. chopped cooked meat (3) 2 oz. flaked cooked fish.

Variety Fritters.

Try these on Monday, when you may have a little fat to spare from the Sunday’s meat.
Ingredients (enough for 4)
4 oz. self-raising flour or 4 oz. plain flour and 2 level teaspoons baking powder, 1 level teaspoon salt, ¼ level teaspoon pepper, ¼ pint milk (approx.), 2 oz. chopped bacon, fat for frying.
Method: Mix flour, baking powder if used, salt and pepper, well together. Mix to a stiff batter with the milk. Beat well. Add the chopped bacon. Fry tablespoons of the mixture in hot fat until golden brown on both sides. Serve at once. This quantity makes about 8 fritters.


Quotation for the Day

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.
Doug Larson

Bacon Week: Part the Fourth.

We go to Britain during World War I, for today’s bacon-focussed story. The importance of bacon to the British psyche (and nutrition status) is really underscored by an article in The Times, of Tuesday, Apr 16, 1918. An announcement had been made by the Food Ministry that supplementary bacon rations to manual workers were to begin, thanks to the arrival of increased supplies.

‘At present all classes of men, and some women, engaged on industrial or agricultural work are receiving the same additional allowance, but in view of the probable necessity of further developments of rationing according to occupation, the following grading has been arranged:-

Class F . – Men engaged in mines, quarries, metal manufacture, shipbuilding and ship-repairing, gas and coke manufacture, transport workers, navvies, boiler stokers, and fireman.

Class E. – Men engaged on heavy bodily work in agriculture, forestry, and fishing.

Class D. – Practically all men engaged in bodily labour, except where, in the case of jewellers and watchmakers, their work, though manual, is essentially sedentary. This class includes postmen, policemen, firemen, coastguards, and men employed on sanitary services, roads, gas, water, and electricity supply.

Doctors and surgeons in general practice, and veterinary surgeons, also come in Section D.

For a wartime recipe for bacon, we go a little further back in the same newspaper ( February 22, 1917) to a feature entitled Economy In Cooking: Further Recipes For The Thrifty. The recipe is from a leaflet put out by the Association of Teachers of Domestic Science of recipes. I wonder what my Canadian readers and friends have to say about its ‘authenticity’!


Canadian Stew.
¾ lb. butter or haricot beans (soaked in boiling water with a little soda, overnight and boiled till soft, without salt)
1 lb. salt pork or fat bacon, cut into dice
2 tablespoonfuls of golden syrup
1 good teaspoonful of mixed mustard
2 teaspoonfuls of salt
1-3 teaspoonfuls pepper
Some warm water
Mixed together to make sauce.
Method: put in casserole or covered stew jar a layer of beans, then pork, and so on, till used up. Pour sauce over, enough to cover but not to make the beans float, cover and cook for four hours in slow oven. When cooked there should be no liquid, only thick moisture. If necessary, mix a little golden syrup and water, and add while cooking. This is nice served with cold beetroot.

Quotation for the Day

Dr. Murchison, the late eminent physician, was wont to declare that bacon fat or ham fat was worth a guinea an ounce in the treatment of wasting diseases.
P.E.Muskett, The Art of Living in Australia (1893)

Bacon Week: Part the Third.

I have noticed recently a spate of recipes popping up - mostly in blogs - for bacon in such ‘odd’ things as doughnuts, muffins, ice-cream, and even alcoholic beverages. There are probably more blogs devoted to bacon than to any other single food (with the exception of bread), and perhaps this recipe angle can be attributed to the drive for novelty, and the hope that this novelty will provoke blog hits.

There is nothing really ‘novel’ of course about something like bacon as an ingredient for ‘sweet’ dishes (although I am not so sure if this is true about alcoholic drinks!). In medieval times, as we know, there was not the strong distinction between ‘sweet’ and ‘savoury’ dishes that is familiar now. Sugar was very expensive in medieval times, it being an exotic imported item, and it was used more in the way of a spice. An early iteration of ‘blancmange’ was, as we have seen previously, a dish of chicken, rice, almonds, cream and eggs, sweetened with sugar.

Here is an interesting dish from the early eighteenth century. It is a sort of elegant, creamy, bacon custard pie which would be quite sweet as it contains ‘a handful of sugar’

A Bacon Pudding.
A Quart of Cream, and boil it, with a handful of Sugar, an a little Butter; Yolks of eight Eggs, and three Whites, boil it together, with three spoonfuls of Flower [flour] and two spoonfuls of Cream; when the Cream boils, put in the Eggs, stirring it till it comes to be thick, and put it in a Dish, and let it cool; then beat a Piece of fat Bacon in a Stone Mortar, till it comes to be like Lard, take out all the Strings from it, and put your Cream to it little by little till it’s well mixed; then put some Puff-past round the Brim of your Dish, and a thin Leaf at Bottom, and pour it into the Dish. Do the Top Chequerwise with Puff-Paste, and let it bake half an Hour.
Court Cookery: or, the Compleat English Cook, Smith, 1725.


Quotation for the Day

I eat bacon for breakfast, bacon for lunch, and I drink my dinner.
Grumpy Old Men (movie)

Bacon Week: Part the Second.

Yesterday we considered bacon and eggs as they were described and cooked in the early seventeenth century – which is pretty well the same way as they are cooked today. Sadly, one thing that has not persisted since early times is the enormous pie. Nowadays we have shaped metal containers to hold the food we wish to bake in an oven, but before the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, the only baking ‘dish’ for a large joint of meat was a thick pastry shell or ‘coffin.’

The source for yesterday’s recipe, The English Houswife, by Gervase Markham, published in 1615, also gives a wonderful description of how a whole gammon (leg) of ham could be baked at that time. Notice that the ‘pie’ is shaped to make it look like a pig, the ‘head’ being modelled separately out of pastry and attached to the ‘body’ – a nice take on the ‘Sham Pig’ idea of a few days ago.

A Gammon of Bacon Pie.
Take a Gammon of Bacon, and onely wash it clean, and then boyl it on a soft gentle fire, till it be boyl’d as tender as is possible, ever and anon fleeting [skimming]it clean, that by all means it may boyl white: then take off the sward [skin], and farce it very well with all manner of sweet and pleasant farcing herbs: then strew store of Pepper over it, and prick it thick with Cloves: then lay it into a coffin made of the same proportion, and lay good store of Butter round about it, and upon it, and strew Pepper on the Butter, that as it melts, the Pepper may fall upon the Bacon: then cover it, and make the proportion of a Pigs Head in paste upon it, then bake it as you bake red Deer, or things of the like nature, only the Paste would be of Wheat-meal

William Salmon’s The Family Dictionary, or Household Companion (1695) describes how to dress ‘in the neatest way’, a Gammon of Bacon. I love this book: the next entry in this very useful general household manual is ‘Gangreen’.

Gammon of Bacon.
To dress this the neatest way, having water’d it [soaked it to remove the excess salt], scrubb’d it with a Brush, and scraped the Rind, and dry’d it again with a Cloth, put it into a Kettle wherein it may have sufficient room: then take Sage, Marjoram, Fenel, Sprigs of Bays and Rosemary, and boil it till it is enough; then split the Skin, and so curiously carve it, and stick the places so stript with Cloves; strew some Pepper on it, and serve it up with Mustard, Pepper, Vinegar, and the Herbs small minced, cut up in fine slices of what length you please, but of very indifferent thickness.


Quotation for the Day.

He describes it as a large apartment, with a red brick floor and a capacious chimney; the ceiling garnished with hams, sides of bacon, and ropes of onions.
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers.

Bacon Week: Part the First.

There is something about bacon, isn’t there? I am not sure what it is, but aside from vegetarians and those who eschew it for religious reasons, bacon rules, doesn’t it? Is it the fat, the salt, the umami, the smell of it frying (especially early in the morning)? The sheer efficiency of it as a flavour additive to almost any savoury dish? Or perhaps it is some sort of ancestral memory thing? Bacon is an ancient comfort food at the most basic level. A flitch of bacon hanging in your chimney in the days before refrigeration and convenience stores meant that all was well with the world, even when it wasn’t.

It is time for this blog to give bacon its due reverence. When I feel stronger and better informed, in a future post I will attempt to clarify American, English, Canadian, Australian and other national interpretations of bacon, but for today, a short glossary of bacon-related words might be in order.

Bacon: the word originally comes from an old German word for ‘back’, because originally it referred to salted meat from the back (and sides) of a pig. Nowadays it often refers to cured meat from the belly of the pig, and at different times in-between and since it has also meant the entire pig, live, fresh, or salted. The salted (cured) element being crucial to most of its usage, there was in medieval times such thing a thing as whale blubber ‘bacon’ – and now we have the modern descendants such as turkey bacon etc, as well as 'mutton ham' and other cousins.

Ham: The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of this word as ultimately deriving from an Old German word hamm meaning crooked (is this where we get ‘ham-fisted’ from?) The first definition given by the OED is ‘that part of the leg at the back of the knee; the hollow or bend of the knee’, and this usage is recorded over two thousand years ago. By the seventeenth century it was being used to refer specifically to ‘the thigh of a slaughtered animal, used for food; spec. that of a hog salted and dried in smoke or otherwise; also, the meat so prepared.’

Gammon: the word is related to the words jamon (Spanish) and jambon (French), and refers to the ‘haunch of a swine’. As the ‘j’ is pronounced ‘h’, you can hear that it is really another way of pronouncing 'ham'. ‘Gammon’ has been used in English since the fifteenth century, if the OED is to be believed, and I see no reason why it should not be.

Flitch: I love this word. It is much older, it seems, than ‘ham’ or ‘bacon’, but essentially means the same thing – ‘the side of an animal, now only a hog, salted and cured.’ In other words, it is a whole side of bacon. The OED records its use as far back as about the year 700.

Rasher: The word has been used in English to refer to ‘a thin slice or strip of bacon, or (less commonly) of other meat, intended to be cooked by grilling, broiling, or frying; a slice of meat cooked in this way’ (OED) since the sixteenth century. Interestingly however, in spite of such ‘recent’ usage, the origin of the word is uncertain. The OED notes a ‘recurrent suggestion’ that it may be a borrowing from the Middle French rasure, or shaving, but ‘this is implausible on phonological grounds’. I await suggestions from the linguists’ world.

Now, onto our recipe for the day - and where else to start but with its best-known application - our breakfast bacon and eggs? One upon a time this was called 'collops and eggs', and we have previously had word fun with ‘(s)collops' too. I doubt that even the most inept or disinterested amongst us needs an actual ‘recipe’ for bacon and eggs (or ‘eggs and bacon’ if you prefer - some folk seem to be pernickety about which is correct), but it is always interesting and edifying to read the instructions and appreciate the style of old cookery books, isn’t it? Here is how the inimitable and profilic Gervase Markham described the process in 1615.


Collops and eggs
To have the best Collops and Eggs, you shall take the whitest and youngest bacon; and cutting away the sward, cut the Collops into thin slices; lay them in a dish, and put hot water unto them, and so let them stand an hour or two, for that will take away the extreme saltness; then drain away the water clean, and put them into a dry pewter dish, and lay them one by one, and set them before the heat of the fire, so as they may toast sufficiently through and through: which done, take your Eggs and break them into a dish, and put a spoonful of Vinegar unto them, then set on a clean skillet with fair water on the fire, and as soon as the water boileth put in the Eggs, and let them take a boil or two, then with a spoon try if they be hard enough, then take them up, and trim them, and dry them; and then, dishing up the Collops, lay the Eggs upon them, and so serve them up: and in this sort you may poach Eggs when you please, for it is the best way and most wholesome.
[The English Housewife, Gervase Markham, 1615]


Quotation for the Day

We plan, we toil, we suffer in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol’s eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? TheEmpire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs.
J.B.Priestley.

Sweet as Bacon.

I am extraordinarily fond of maple syrup. Sadly, but hardly surprisingly, the sugar maple does not grow here in the sub-tropics, so I must rely on the imported product, and the occasional generosity of international friends for my fix. Poured liberally over fruit, yoghurt, and pancakes is my usual option, but in the past, under conditions of supreme abundance I have made maple syrup cake, muffins, ice-cream, and – Oh! Glory! maple crème brulée. Imagine my delight to find that there is in the world such a thing as maple-cured bacon! A feast of maple-cured bacon is officially on my bucket list, as of right now.

Sugar in one form or another has been used in curing meats for a long time. As well as assisting the preservation process, the use of sugar (honey, molasses, maple syrup) adds a sweet edge to the flavour, and a nice balance to the saltiness and smokiness of the cured meat - a greater issue in pre-refrigeration days, when both processes were much more heavily applied.

There are many references to ‘sweet bacon’ in historical food literature, but it does not always mean that sugar has been used in the curing process. ‘Sweet’, when applied to such things as meat and fish often refers to the absence of negative qualities such as staleness, fustiness, sourness, offensive smell (or outright putridity), and invasion by ‘nauseous insects' caused by failure of the preservation process. A writer for the New England Farmer (1861) explained the problem rather graphically, and offered a strategy to minimise it:

‘Every person of experience knows how difficult it is to keep bacon sweet throughout the summer months; flies and other nauseous insects are attracted to it, and deposit their filthy eggs and slimy larvae in every available crevice, till the meat is worthless, and more than all that, all animal matter has a tendency to taint and decompose, and bacon is very liable to suffer in that way, unless indurated with salt to such a degree as to make it unpalatable. As smoke is a disinfectant, and a strong antiseptic, all the bacon that is to be kept for summer use I let remain in the smoke-house, and occasionally fumigate it with a pan of smoking cobs, the best preventative of taint as well as repellent of flies, bugs, and other nauseous insects.’


In the same year, in Britain, Mrs Isabella Beeton, in her Book of Household Management (1861) was battling with the same problem, but suggested a different solution:

To keep the bacon sweet and good, and free from hoppers, sift fine some clean and dry wood ashes. Put some at the bottom of a box or chest long enough to hold a flitch of bacon; lay in one flitch, and then put in more ashes, then another flitch, and cover this with six or eight inches of ashes. The place where the box or chest is put ought to be dry, and should the ashes become damp, they should be put in the fireplace to dry, and when cold, put back in again. With these precautions, the bacon will be as good at the end of the year as on the first day.

The problem of invasion of bacon by filthy eggs and slimy larvae is, thankfully, rarely a problem for us today, thanks no doubt to the producers’ impressive armamentarium of chemical preservatives – which may or may not be a different sort of health problem. At least one had a chance of spotting filthy eggs and slimy larvae on one’s breakfast plate.

Now, if you really want sweet bacon, try this!

To make Collops like Bacon of Marchpane.
Take some of your Marchpane [marzipan] Paste, and work it in red Saunders [sandalwood] till it be red; then rowl a broad sheet of white Paste, and a sheet of red Paste; three of the white and four of the red, and so one upon the other in mingled sorts, every red between, then cut it overthwart, till it look like Collops of Bacon, then dry it.
A Queen’s Delight, 1671

Quotation for the Day.

I’ve long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs. There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon, or the lovely round of pinkish meat framed in delicate white fat that is Canadian bacon. Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing.
James Beard

Bacon and Peas.

It being cool here at present - ‘cool’ that is, for the sub-tropics - I made pea soup with ham the other day. I made an industrial quantity of it, it being impossible for me to make soup (or anything else for that matter) in small quantities. I thought hard and deeply about the association of pig with peas(e) as I cooked.

The association is very old – it has been common at least since medieval times, it seems. This is presumably because both bacon (or ham) and peas(e) were easily-grown, home-grown, and kept well, so were the meat and veg staples per excellence, for all but the poorest folk.

A dish of ‘bakoñ served with pesoñ’ was listed as suitable for the first course of a feast for a ‘franklin’ (a non-noble landholder) in the mid-sixteenth century Boke of Nurture by John Russell. Staying in the sixteenth century, the nutrition-aware monk and writer Andrew Boorde had clear opinions on both pease/beans and bacon. The pulses, he felt, caused great windiness (‘venostyte’), and the bacon was fit for the hard-working labourers:

“Bacon is good for Carters, and plowe men, the which be euer labouryng in the earth or dunge; but & yf they haue the stone, and vse to eate it, they shall synge 'wo be to the pye!' Wherefore I do say that coloppes and egges is as holsome for them as a talowe candell is good for a horse mouth, or a peece of powdred Beefe is good for a blere eyed mare. Yet sensuall appetyde must haue a swynge at all these thynges, notwithstandynge.”

For the higher classes, bacon was liable to be used in more fancy dishes, for added flavour or fat – or both, as in the following instructions for baked venison, from A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye (c 1545)

To bake Veneson.
Take nothynge but pepper and salte, but lette it haue ynoughe, and yf the Veneson be
leane, larde it throughe wyth bacon.


Quotation for the Day

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.
Thomas Jefferson

Boating for Bacon.

I was most intrigued by the following article, from The Times of August 17, 1830.

Yesterday the following singular rowing match took place above Westminster-bridge. The prizes were given by Mr. Pay, the landlord of The Ship, at Lambeth; and the unique nature of these prizes will be best explained by the following copy of the bill of fare.

First boat ................. A noble Flitch of Bacon.

Second ditto ............ Four Pigs’ Heads.

Third ditto ............... Three ditto.

Fourth ditto ............. Two ditto.

Fifth & Sixth ditto ... One each.

To be rowed on Monday, the 16th of August, in two heats, the first heat at three o’clock, and the second at six. To start from buoys moored off the Ship-wharf, round Carey’s Bath, up the Surrey shore, through Vauxhall-bridge, down round Mr. Barchard’s road, up to the wharf.

[There followed a list of boats with ‘colours’ of cabbage, beans, carrots, cucumbers, and onions.]

The flitch of bacon was large enough to make a covering for a city alderman. The nature of this match was such that it attracted many more thousands on the river and its banks than if the premiums amounted to 100 l.

I wonder how that idea originated! A wager by some well-oiled aldermen late one night, most likely. The winning bacon was probably simply sliced and fried, although there were other bacon recipe alternatives in 1830. I give you a delicious cabbage soup flavoured with bacon.

Cabbage Soup.
Boil some rasher of streaked bacon about two hours, in the quantity of water you require for soup; then add some cabbages previously blanched, and if you like, some sausages; pepper and salt the soup, but take care to put very little salt, on account of the bacon. Skim well before you put in the cabbages. This receipt is the same in most of the French cookery books, except that some tell you , that when the cabbage and bacon are done, you should soak a few slices of bread in some of the broth, and then mix them with the whole soup.

Quotation for the Day.

Friends are the bacon bits in the salad bowl of life.
Unknown.

Fear of Bacon.

It seems to me that the citizens of the world are divided into three groups when it comes to bacon:

- Those who eschew it for religious reasons.
- Those who love it madly, deeply, unreservedly and unashamedly.
- Those who fear it.

The groups are not completely exclusive of each other of course. Strange though it may seem, some of those in the second group also belong to the third group – and how sad is that?

There are many things about bacon that can be a source of anxiety for those who are susceptible. There is the kidney-destroying salt used in curing, the potentially carcinogenic smoking process, the worrying preservatives – some ‘germs’, maybe, in spite of that salt, smoke, and chemicals. Most of all there is the FAT. Fat gives flavour of course, but we are talking here about fear, not flavour. Supermarket bacon can now be found which has so little fat it looks like oval slices of uniformly pale pink luncheon meat, and tastes about as delicious. Bacon so low fat it might as well be rhubarb.

How refreshing to go back to the days when bacon was loved for its fat – the days when every drop of it was saved to add flavour to another dish. How marvelous to find an author who positively glories in bacon fat – and the author of a book on salads too. The book is called Two hundred recipes for making salads with thirty recipes for dressings and sauces, (Olive Hulse, 1910). This author is so fearless she is even able to refer to it as ‘grease’- a word not normally welcomed in the modern kitchen in any context.

“One can always rely on the best quality of olive oil for salads, but there are those who prefer the flavor of smoked bacon fat. This is particularly true of people living in hot climates.”

The author particularly likes it with Dandelion Salad.


Dandelion Salad.
First remove all dead leaves and root, and wash thoroughly. Take a small handful at a time, shake free from water, and cut up fine into a mixing bowl. When all is used – have enough to make about two quarts when tossed lightly into a bowl – sprinkle over one teaspoonful of salt, one of sugar, and a pinch of mustard. Have ready as much fat bacon cut into bits as will fill a small teacup, fry to a light brown; remove the bacon and into the hot grease mince a small onion, if onion flavor is not objectionable; fry lightly; then add to the hot grease, one-half cup mild vinegar, and pour it over the dandelions and mix well. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs sliced, and serve at once.

And here is another version of bacon dressing – a proudly, fearlessly named sauce that can be “thinned” with …… cream!


Bacon Fat Sauce.
Heat five tablespoons of strained bacon or ham fat in a saucepan: add two tablespoonfuls of flour and stir to a smooth paste. Add one-eighth of a teaspoonful of paprika and one-third of a cup of vinegar diluted with one cup of boiling water, stirring constantly. When the sauce begins to boil, remove to the side of the range, and beat in two yolks of eggs. Add more salt if necessary. Do not allow the sauce to boil after the eggs are added. Chill thoroughly and serve with spinach or dandelion, endive or lettuce. The sauce may be thinned with cream if too thick.

Quotation for the Day.

We plan, we toil, we suffer -- in the hope of what? A camel-load of idol's eyes? The title deeds of Radio City? The empire of Asia? A trip to the moon? No, no, no, no. Simply to wake up just in time to smell coffee and bacon and eggs. And, again I cry, how rarely it happens! But when it does happen -- then what a moment, what a morning, what a delight!
J. B. Priestley, (1894-1984)

Angels, Devils, and Pigs.

I have been side-tracked recently into a minor exploration of historical bacon recipes. Life’s interesting little side-tracks have a secondary level of deviations and detours all of their own, as I am sure you have found for yourself. One along which I found myself wandering was the trail of the original ‘Angels on Horseback’. I am sure you are all familiar with these delicious items – oysters wrapped in bacon and served as an hors d’oeuvre – or, if you have traditional English eating habits, as the small savoury dish which represents the final course at dinner or supper.


If you are familiar with Angels on Horseback, you are probably also familiar with their cheaper cousin, Devils on Horseback, made with a devilishly black prune (or occasionally a date) where the oyster should be? There are other interpretations of the idea too – we had Oysters Dick Turpin some time ago, but have yet to enjoy Pigs in a Blanket (which are served on toast, therefore technically a canapé not an hors d’oeuvre – for those of you inclined to pedantry in these matters.)

So, when did Angels on Horseback first appear, and whence their name? The second question I cannot answer, there being a surfeit of theories which I have not attempted to authenticate at this time. The first question I cannot answer either with any degree of certainty save to say that the Oxford English Dictionary is not correct. The OED gives the first citation as the 1888 edition of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, but a very superficial search retrieves some earlier mentions. I make no claim that the following one (from 1800) is the absolute earliest, but it provides a much earlier and very different interpretation of ‘Devils on Horseback’.

“All frequenters of London restaurants know, I suppose, the pleasant little dish called “Angels on Horseback”, sometimes transformed into “Devils.” I find them extremely agreeable with brown bread and butter, and any favourite beverage – cocoa, chocolate, wine, or beer – on returning form an evening’s amusement with exhausted energies; and, lest any of my readers should not know how to arrange them, I give the directions:-

Take a dozen or more fine native oysters, according to your party, remove the beard, and wrap each oyster up in a tiny very thin slice of good bacon, having first salted and peppered it to taste, and added a few drops of lemon juice. Procure some well galvanized or silvered thin skewers, and string the rolled up oysters onto these till each skewer is full. Place them in a Dutch oven before the fire, turning them until the bacon is well done, brown, and crisp, serve on a hot dish, leaving the oysters on the skewers, which can be removed as wanted with a fork.

To transform the “angels” into “devils”, add a larger quantity of cayenne pepper or even a few shreds of capsicum. I prefer the “angels” as retaining the flavour of the oysters, just as I think whitebait is best not devilled. These delicate morsels keep hot for a long time before the fire in my plate warmer, which for the occasion becomes an oven, for the preservation of viands and hot plates, after the prescribed hours of bedtime for the household.

[Aberdeen Weekly Journal, Dec 11, 1800 in ‘Our Ladies Column’]

And as for ‘Pigs in Blankets’, here is a recipe from the Household Column of the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle of January 8, 1887.

“Little Pigs in Blankets” are made by first draining the oysters and seasoning with salt and pepper, and then cutting fat bacon into very thin slices and wrapping a big oyster in each slice, fastening with a wooden skewer – a toothpick is best. The frying pan must be heated well before the little pigs are put in, and they must be cooked long enough for the bacon to crisp. These are to be served immediately on toast cut into small pieces.

Quotation for the Day.

“I've long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs. There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon, or the lovely round of pinkish meat framed in delicate white fat that is Canadian bacon. Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing.”
James Beard (1903-1985)

Rations for one.

The amazing work of the British Food Ministry during World War II continues to provide much food for thought over half a century later. Week after week throughout the war and for years afterwards (rationing did not end completely until 1953) they churned out information and advice to the general public on rationing and many other war-related food issues. We could with advantage heed some of that advice today – particularly the advice relating to avoiding waste, reducing our meat consumption, and growing as much as possible of our own food.

Weekly Food Facts leaflets put out by the Ministry were reproduced in the newspapers, and today I want to share with you the advice in one edition from mid 1944. Food Facts leaflet number 231 gave good advice about using leftovers and spreading out the meat consumption, but it was particularly addressed to those living alone. It was a lot less common for someone to live alone at this time than it is now – and we are told that the number of solo households is increasing dramatically, so perhaps reviewing this advice is timely.

Upon receipt of a postcard request, the Food Ministry would send, free of charge, “ideas for a week’s menu for one person living alone, with recipes for many of the dishes mentioned,” but Food Facts leaflet 231 had some good advice in itself.

“It’s less easy to manage on a single ration than it is to cater for a family when one has three or four Ration Books to juggle with, but given imagination and ingenuity, it is possible for those with one Ration Book to avoid monotony and eat well. Sometimes you will buy your meat ration on one piece, pot-roast it, and eat the remainder cold with some appetising trimming. Sometimes you will grill or stew your three chops, or make pie, pudding, and casserole out of your 1s.2d. worth of stewing steak. A vegetable stew with dumplings, or a cheese and vegetable pasty will provide you with another main meal. Bacon Hash, a risotto of diced liver sausage, a Pilchard salad, or Scotch eggs or Mock Hamburgers are other good dishes for the man or woman who lives alone.”

Most of the Food Facts leaflets included recipes, and number 231 was no exception. I give you two of them for your interest today.

Bacon Hash.
Ingredients: 2 slices bacon, ½ lb potatoes, sliced, ½ lb mixed vegetable slices, 1 onion, sliced, pepper and salt, ½ pint stock or water.
Method: Remove rinds from bacon and cut into small pieces. Cut bacon into larger pieces and fry all together until fairly crisp. Remove from pan. Put in layers of sliced potatot, vegetable and onion and bacon, finishing with potato. Season well. Pour over liquid. Bring quickly to boiling point then simmer gently for one hour.

Mock Hamburger.
Ingredients: 1-2 oz.mince, 2 oz. grated raw potato, 1 oz. oatmeal, seasoning, 1 chopped onion, 1 teaspoon chopped parsley.
Method: Mix all the ingredients together and fry spoonfuls in shallow fat for 10-15 minutes.

Quotation for the Day.

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink, for dining alone is leading the life of a lion or wolf.
Epicurus

The Larder

Today in the kitchen word series it is the turn of the larder. Who has a larder these days? Nowadays the word ‘larder’ is sometimes used as a synonym for ‘pantry’, especially if the writer is aiming for a nostalgic feel - the original usage was, however, quite different.

As with ‘pantry’, ‘larder’ has a French heritage, and is no doubt another legacy of those pesky Normans who invaded England in 1066. The OED gives the first recorded use in English as being in 1305, but undoubtedly the word was in use long before this. ‘Larder’ is related, quite obviously, to lard – pig fat, in other words. Originally a larder was a room in which meat (originally probably bacon) was stored, and naturally also other foodstuffs prone to rapid spoilage found a home on its shelves.

The modern refrigerator has of course taken the place of the domestic larder. Before refrigeration technology, a great deal of careful planning went into the building of the larder, as the following extract from The English cookery book: uniting a good style with economy ... by John Henry Walsh, (1859)

The Larder, which is the place set apart for keeping fresh provisions is, and also, in most cases, for the salting of pork, beef, &c., should be placed where it has a thorough draught, and where it is sheltered from the sun. A northerly aspect is therefore the most suitable, or, next to that, an easterly one. The thorough draught cannot always be procured directly; but if it cannot in that way, a large air-drain may be carried under the floor to the opposite side of the house, where a grating may be fixed, and thus a free draught may be obtained. Underground larders are seldom efficient for the keeping of meat, because this perfect draught is not attainable except in windy weather, when there is little difficulty in effecting its preservation; but in moist and muggy weather the air is quite stagnant in the basement story of a town house, and consequently, though tolerably cool, the air is not rapidly changed, and putrefaction goes on without let or hindrance. To fit up a larder for a small house merely requires a number of deal shelves and a door, of which the panels are replaced by plates of perforated zinc, of a pattern sufficiently close to prevent the entrance of flies, yet large enough to admit the air freely. Where there is also a window, it should in like manner be guarded by similar sheets of zinc.

I know I promised at the beginning of the week that all recipes would be from the seventeenth century – I have no idea why I promised that, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but instead I give you one from the same source as the above quotation.

Egg and Bacon Pie to Eat Cold.
Steep a few thin slices of bacon all night in water, lay them in a pie dish; beat eight eggs with a pint of cream, add pepper and salt, and pour it on the bacon; cover with a crust, and bake in a moderate oven the day before you require it.


Quotation for the Day.

Next was November, he full gross and fat, As fed with lard, and that right well might seem; For, he had been a fatting hogs of late.
Edmund Spenser

A Pig's Face, by any other name.

I am leaving York today and heading South, to Bath. As it turns out, it is Jane Austen week, which I did not know when I booked – proving that travel is full of good surprises. I had in mind to talk about food and dining in the Regency period, to keep in my holiday theme, and I will do this later the week – but today I want to consider the Bath Chap. Actually, what I really want to do while I am here is eat a slice or two of genuine Bath Chap.

In 2006 the Guild of Fine Food Retailers ran a competition to decide the top 10 Forgotten British Foods – and Bath Chaps are top of the list, which seems like a good enough reason to try them.

1.‘Eadles’ Bath Chaps
2. Mrs Grieve’s Fish Custard
3. Mrs Langland’s Faggots
4. Grey Squirrel Casserole
5. Rook Pie
6. Rabbit with Prunes
7. Fife Brooth
8. Roman Pie
9. 16th C Pancakes
10. A Grand Sallet (from Robert Mays’ cookbook of the 17th C)

‘Chaps’ are chops in the old-fashioned sense of the word meaning the jaw, or cheeks. So chaps are part of a pigs’s face, really. A true Bath Chap should be made from a dappled, apple-eating pig called a Gloucestershire Old Spot. The cheeks are boned, then brined (and sometimes smoked) and pressed into a cone-shaped mould. When needed, the now cone-shaped piece of meat is removed, crumbed, sliced and then eaten, or alternatively, fried then eaten. It is simply facial ham or bacon.

Should you have a desire to make your own, here is how:

Bath Chaps, Or Cheeks.
Chose your cheeks from pigs not more than eight score weight. Split open, carefully take out all the offal, and for every stone of fourteen pounds of meat, allow

Saltpetre 1 oz.
Coarse sugar 1 Ib.
Bay salt or rock 1 Ib.
Pepper 1 oz.
Rub the cheeks thoroughly and daily for a week; then turn them in the pickle for a fortnight more, when you may take them up, dry and wipe, and coat them nicely with warmed coarse oatmeal, and hang them to dry for a week. Smoke them a month, or only dry them in your chimney by a gentle heat. Oak and grass turfs must be the fuel made use of.

The art and mystery of curing, preserving, and potting all kinds of meats, game, and fish; also the art of pickling and the preservation of fruits and vegetables. By J.R, 1864.

Quotation of the Day …

Eternity is a ham and two people. Dorothy Parker.

Sending home the bacon.

Today, November 30th ...

A two month siege of Rochester Castle in Kent ended on this day in 1215. The rebel barons who had siezed it were finally defeated by King John in a campaign that used an ingenious tunnel-and-burn technique. The very hungry besieged inmates were by this stage eating their remaining horses (no, I am not going to give you a horsemeat recipe), and their nostrils must have been particularly agonised by the King’s choice of accelerant for the flames – pig fat.

When the tunnels were finished, the king commanded “ … that with all haste, by day and night, you send to us 40 bacon pigs of the fattest and those less good for the eating to bring fire under the tower". The timber lining the tunnels was coated with the pig fat and set alight, taking the fire into the foundations of the south tower, which eventually crumbled.

It was almost 500 years too soon, but King John would have found William Salmon’s
“Family Dictionary and Household Companion” (1695) very useful. It had consecutive entries on Gammon and “Gangreen” – both useful topics on this particular battlefield, particularly as any leftover pig-fat could be recycled in the gangrene remedy. We are not mindful of the risk of gangrene in our households today, and Jamie, Delia, et al completely omit recipes for its treatment, so I give this one for you to keep as a standby. Any leftover Cataplasm could be recycled into a delicious bread pudding.

Gangreen.
When the part afflicted with this Malady has been lightly scarified, apply, as hot as can be endured, a Cataplasm of strong Brandy and Crumbs of White Bread, shifting it three or four times a day, or as often as you find it convenient; or for want of this, take a boiled Turnip, mash it with Hogs-lard, and lay it to the place.

The dictionary also had a recipe for a “Bacon Froise” which could have been useful for the battlefield quartermaster. A “froise” was a kind of thick pancake, which typically contained - slices of bacon!

Bacon Froise.
Take eight Eggs well beaten, a little Cream and a little Flower, beat them well together, like other Batter, then fry very thin slices of Bacon, and pour some of this over; then fry it, and turn the other side, pour more upon that, so fry it, and serve it to Table.

Tomorrow … Liquid Lunches.