Being one who wholeheartedly believes everything tastes better with bacon and a few chunks of fried bacon can turn the simple into the sublime, then how could we not love a cookbook that features bacon in every recipe in some form and opens with this statement, ‘I don’t hesitate a moment to proclaim bacon to be the greatest and most beloved food on earth’. In The Bacon Cookbook prolific author and writer (editor of Town & Country Magazine for 27 years) James Villas offers 168 ways to savor the flavor of bacon from crispy sandwiches, smoky stews and casseroles, sweet barbecues, delectable soups and even a few savory breads and desserts.
Villas enthusiastically celebrates bacon’s versatility across many cuisines and provides a nice selection of classic bacon-enhanced favorites such as Hungarian Venison and Bacon Ragout; Irish Hot Pot; Italian Spaghetti alla Carbonara and Long Island Oyster and Bacon Casserole to more modern enticements such as Japanese Braised Pork and Bacon with Chinese Cabbage and Jamaican Smoked Fish, Cheese and Bacon Salad. Being a Southerner, Villas naturally offers up plenty of traditional southern treats such as Smoky Hoppin’ John; Carolina Seafood Gumbo and Southern Bacon Cornsticks. Villas is a wonderful writer and each recipe header gives the origin of the dish along with helpful information on subtleties and variations in preparing the recipe.
For those who shun bacon for its high sodium and fat content, Villas challenges that the problem lies not with the bacon rather with the quantity consumed at a sitting and to lessen the fat simply eat fewer slices. “Heaven knows, I’m not one to preach when it comes to eating wisely, but the truth is that devouring a quarter pound of luscious bacon at a time not only degrades the blissful pleasure but approaches sheer gluttony. As for cooking with bacon, if most of the recipes in this book illustrate nothing else, they prove that it takes very little bacon to transform numerous otherwise banal dishes into memorable culinary treasures.” Hallelujah!
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Posted by Food Junkie on November 6, 2007Categories - Meat, Poultry, BBQ
