Vintage Sunday: A Handful of Old Bacon Recipes

Thanks to the Internet Bacon Meme, people seem to think that the intense interest in bacon is a recent phenomenon.  The variety of old recipes featuring bacon may surprise you.

From an original photo by carla fealy choate
Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Take, for example Chicken Fried Bacon.  The Wikipedia article about it says it was introduced in Texas in the early 1990's, but an incredibly similar recipe appeared in the Sarasota [FL] Herald nearly 60 years earlier, on 29 December 1937:

Breaded Luncheon Bacon

Have a well beaten egg in one plate and finely crushed cracker crumbs in anohter. Have bacon sliced thin and cut the strips in two for easier handling. Dip each slice of bacon first in the egg, then in the cracker crumbs and brown in hot fat in a skillet. Watch and turn carefully as it burns easily.

A recipe for Bacon Corn Bread appeared in that issue as well.  It looks pretty good, but personally I think it could use a bit more bacon:

Bacon Corn Bread

From the Sarasota [FL] Herald, 29 December 1937

1 cup corn meal
1 cup white flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup sweet milk
¼ cup diced bacon

Sift flour, measure and sift with baking powder and salt. Add corn meal. Combine egg, milk and bacon which has been crisped. Add dry ingredients. Fill well-oiled muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake in hot oven (450 F) 15 minutes.

Here's another delicious bacon recipe, this one from the Miami News, 8 January 1937:

Bacon and Oyster Sandwich

Place one raw oyster and a strip of partially broiled bacon on each lightly toasted round of bread and toast the sandwich under the broiler flame unitl lightly browned. Serve while hot with mayonnaise.

This crappy out-of-focus picture
was the best I could do with the
lousy camera in my cell phone.

This old classic, Anchovy Bacon Rolls, is from my grandmother's favorite cookbook, the Woman's Home Companion Cookbook, 1941 edition:

Anchovy Bacon Rolls

Lay one or two anchovy fillets along each slice of bacon; roll tightly jelly-roll fashion and fasten with a toothpick. Broil until bacon is crisp and browned. Remove toothpick and insert a fresh one. Serve hot.

Anchovy bacon rolls are really delicious, but between the fishies and the cured pigmeat, they're pretty salty.

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