Tag: bacon

bacon adds to life

I was watching a science program on TV the other night, and they were discussing how life might have begun on Earth.  (It’s funny to me that I know, yet so many scientists still don’t know.)  There are numerous theories / hypotheses, and one of the main ones is that life started by accident.  Supposedly amino acids in primordial soup collided with each other many times, until the right combination was formed to produce life.  (And I have to wonder — who was first, male or female?)  Amino acids are part of the building blocks of life.

The second widely-held theory / hypothesis is that an asteroid with frozen organisms deep inside crashed into Earth.  This would mean that we’re all aliens, and that life as we know it came from another planet.  But even if life came from another planet, it still had to start somewhere, somehow, since the Universe was formed by the Big Bang.

So let’s go back to the first theory.  Life had to start somewhere, obviously.  If colliding amino acids can create life, then you could create life by slapping pieces of bacon together enough times.  (You may think I’m being silly, but hold on.)  Bacon contains amino acids.  Actually, science explains that part of the reason we are attracted to the smell of bacon cooking is because of the chemical reaction of amino acids and reducing sugars.   (It’s called a Maillard reaction, if you wish to do further study.  That reaction also contributes to the taste of seared meat and roasted coffee.)  Of course, another reason we’re attracted to the smell of bacon cooking is because it smells awesome.

So since bacon contains amino acids that are essential to life, and life can supposedly start from the random collision of amino acids, then a simple formulaic proof could be constructed proving that slapping strips of bacon together can create life.  (Perhaps that Abstract Algebra class in college could be useful after all…)

Wow… the power of bacon!

Obviously a corollary to this new theory would be that eating bacon adds to your life.

Meat Madness

As you’ve probably heard, March Madness / the NCAA tournament for college basketball is underway.  It can be fun to fill out your bracket and see how well you predict who wins what games.  But I don’t keep up with it enough to know all the teams, so some of it would be just a blind guess for me.  But there is a similar-style bracket that I would know more about: Meat Madness.

Meat Madness has a tournament-style bracket of 32 contenders.   There are 4 regions: the “Red” Meat Region, the Poultry Region, and Pork Region, and the Seafood Region.  Not every meat fits exactly into those categories, but it’s close enough.  There are no rules on how to vote — you can base your vote on flavor, cost, convenience, whatever.  Personally, I think flavor trumps all other considerations.

Click the image for a larger version.

The Pork Region is stacked!  Bacon is favored (hence its #1 seed), but there’s some good challenges there.  And in a way, it’s unfair to have steak be only one entry, because there are several different tasty varieties.

I didn’t create this (though I find myself wondering why I didn’t think of this first).  Here’s the link to the original meat madness bracket so you can read their description of it, along with the comments to see how it played out.  Ironically, ESPN came out with their own Meat Madness bracket a week after So Good did.  ESPN’s has 64 seeds, but the article debates each one and tells you the winners without reader participation.  Still, if you want to look at it, here’s the link.

I’d like to get a group of guys together to vote on this sometime to see what really does win.  If that happens, I’ll let you know who wins.   In the meantime, you can share your predictions with us in a comment.  Who should win, and why?

Buffet o’ Bacon 4

Last night I had the Buffet o’ Blog staff at my house, and I knew there had been rumors of more bacon “research”, but I wasn’t expecting much, given various circumstances.  But this turned into quite the bacon extravaganza!  We had five (5) bacon dishes to test.  Of course, I took some pictures to go with my analysis and commentary.  First up is bacon-wrapped pineapple — on a stick.

It seemed weird to mix bacon with a fruit, but it didn’t taste too bad.   The texture was weird to me.  But pineapple by itself has a somewhat weird texture.  Nonetheless, it was pretty good, but was overshadowed by some of the other bacon experiments.

Next up in our buffet of bacon was bacon-wrapped Twinkies.  How would you expect this to be?

We were skeptical about it before, but it proved to be the tastiest of them all.   The key here was cooking the bacon prior to wrapping the Twinkies.   Once wrapped, we placed them in the oven just long enough to heat the Twinkies (and we did it too much, as evidenced by the creamy overflow).  The taste was great — a pleasant mixture of bacon and sweetness, and it was not greasy at all (which was my main concern before trying it).  I would definitely eat these again… and again… 🙂

Next we made small sausage balls (of just pork / breakfast sausage), wrapped in bacon, and held together with toothpicks.  We had intended to apply the BBQ sauce before cooking, but didn’t add it until about halfway through cooking.

These were very delicious.   (Would you expect otherwise?)  You just have to make sure the sausage gets cooked thoroughly.  And be sure to cook these on a raised rack of some kind to let the bacon grease and sausage grease drain off.  Failure to do so may result in a “gut-bomb”.  (For a documented example of that, see the second comment about our initial Buffet o’ Bacon.)

Next up was a BLT — bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich, with Miracle Whip.  Nothing revolutionary, and tasted like you would expect.

Last but not least in our “research” was chocolate-covered bacon.  The bacon was cooked first, with all grease drained, then dipped in molten chocolate.   The molten chocolate was made from semi-sweet chocolate chips plus butter.

Chocolate-covered bacon may sound gross if you haven’t tried it, but it’s quite delicious.   The salty bacon goes well with the sweetness of the chocolate.   You really should try it for yourself sometime.

If you would like to read about our other Buffet o’ Bacon events, here’s a link to search the blog for “Buffet o’ Bacon“.  (It will find a few other posts which reference it, but using a search will also find future ones, too, once they’re published.)  You could also have your own bacon research parties.  It’s a really fun time (as you would imagine).  You could post your results on your blog, and be sure to link back here so we can check it out.

food critic, bacon sandwich

Regular reader Mango-Man sent in a picture of a bacon sandwich.   It’s not one he made, but it looks intriguing.  There is definitely plenty of bacon!  But it still seems to be lacking something.

What do you think should be done to make this bacon sandwich better?

(If you enjoy being a food critic, this is part of an ongoing series we have.  Click on Food Critic in the sidebar to see the other ones.)