James Villas: The Bacon Cookbook

By ALEXANDRA GREELEY (special to Super Chef) Warning! If you are a vegetarian, follow a low-cal diet, don’t eat pork, or must cut down on sodium, you will probably either glance through James Villas’ The Bacon Cookbook (Wiley 2007) or just pass it by at the bookstore. But if you enjoy the pleasures of the table, and are enthralled by cooking and eating every sort of ingredient—including luscious bacon—you’ll snatch up your copy of the book and start planning a breakfast, lunch, or dinner—and, yes, dessert—based on one or several of the recipes. Indeed, the upcoming holidays should provide ample opportunity to explore all 240 pages of recipes (the book consists of a total of 276 pages), rummaging through such offerings as Japanese Bacon Tempura (batter-dipped and deep-fried thick-cut smoky bacon), Hungarian Venison and Bacon Ragout accompanied by Brussels Sprouts Braised with Apple and Bacon, and for dessert, Bacon-Wrapped Figs Stuffed with Almonds in Port to structure a celebratory holiday meal. That bacon holds such allure and merits its own cookbook should not be surprising, for it seems that even many of America’s most revered figures, such as the late James Beard himself, can’t do without regular bacon splurges. As Villas quotes Beard, “ ‘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.’” (p. xii.) Surprisingly, it is a food with a long and rather colorful legacy—first produced by the Chinese several thousand years ago—and is definitely a product that adds up to more than some streaky slices sealed in convenient plastic packages. As Villas points out, bacon is one of man’s oldest and most revered foods, and as it has traveled from country to country, bacon has taken on various guises. But it may be one about which most people are uninformed. As Villas says, the term “bacon” describes the fatty meat “from a pig’s belly, side, back, and breast that is cured with salt and other preservatives and/or smoked.” (p. 1.) Of course, there is also fresh bacon, a product enjoyed by Italians as pancetta and by Americans as fatback. As artisans in America and abroad have discovered, bacon is eminently adaptable—and in the United States, it has become a designer food. To help readers, Villas tells just what to look for, and, more importantly, how to store and cook bacon. Villas also anticipates that most readers will want to experiment with different bacons from different producers, so he has included a comprehensive source list for premium bacons from here and abroad. As an added benefit, Villas lards the text with nuggets of interesting bacon information set apart in discreet sidebars. Thus armed, the intrepid cook can set forth on his bacon exploration. And certainly, after the holidays, no one should shelve a bacon lust for a whole year, for as Villas points out so lyrically, there are loads of ways to enjoy this piece of pork. Take his Cobb Salad, a dish “that would be virtually pointless without bacon.” (p. 102.) Not only does Villas call for chicken breasts poached in white wine and herbs, but also he embellishes his salad with crumbled strips of applewood-smoked bacon. Sigh. Or consider his version of that all-time American classic, the BLT, glorified in Villas' recipe with thick slices of applewood- or hickory-smoked bacon. He even adds a quirky recipe for onion-stuffed hot dogs wrapped in thin slices of bacon, and, for breakfast, New England Apple and Bacon Griddlecakes. Although Villas’ photo shows him as a slender and rather dapper gentleman, he must have tested and sampled every dish in the book—and yet he obviously did not balloon up to 500 pounds. Darn it! Some people have all the luck! Previous articles: James Villas: Glory of Southern Cooking [Cookbook Reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef