By: Sean
[2001-12-05]
The Great Bacon Experiment Day 3
What to do with bacon by-products?
How many pounds of food does the average person eat in one day? I don't know, but I've been averaging two pounds of bacon per day. I don't know if two pounds of food per day is normal or not. I'd sort of think it's a bit low, what with the meat on your fast food hamburger being 1/4 pound or so. Add in bread, frieds, and two more meals, and I think you've passed the two pound mark.
Bacon's pretty filling, though. Especially when you've reached a point where, given the choice, you'd rather not eat any more bacon, and it's become a test of endurance and survival. I'm going to be perfectly frank with you guys: I hate bacon. Oh, sure, I used to like it, but too much bacon spoils the bacon as the saying goes.
Yeah, that's right, you heard me. It's no picnic when you've eaten nothing but bacon the last three days.
But maybe that's all a little grand. It's not like I've actually been consuming every pound of bacon out of the bacon. Some of that is grease, you know. I've been saving that up though. I don't know how, but I'll put it to good use. Maybe I'll donate it to the war effort. Maybe I'll light it on fire.
Oh yeah, did I tell you guys that? Bacon grease is flammable. It'll even burn on a stove top. Was news to me.
Also, when frying, some of that grease evaporates, so I had an idea: The bacon condensor. I'll rig up a sort of fume hood over the stove top, to which I will connect an intricate system of chilled metal tubing to condense and collect that precious precious essence of pig I've until now been letting escape. If it weren't too hot, I'd just inhale it.
Today's bacons:
Hormel, chosen on the grounds that SPAM is so good, their bacon must be terrific. And
Good Day, chosen on the grounds that their
fabric softener gets my laundry so soft, they must make a lovely bacon.
Vitals:
Weight: Down, slightly.
Complexion: Improved.
Chest pains: None.
Brain worm seizures: Mild.
Hallucinations: None.
Sean, that lost bacon grease doesn't flit away on the breeze. Check your countertops, kettle, and anything else near the stove. Then lick them, as is your duty in bacon-related matters.
The bacon condenser is a good idea maybe. It might be possible to make bacon mead! You know, as kind of a grand finale, you might get a nice filet mignon with a strip of bacon wrapped around it. I'm not sure about the bacon mead thing, though. When sugar gets fermented, it makes alcohol, but I think that fermented fat just makes cheese; but it still might work out as it could be something like port salut cheese, or champgne brie, or maybe beer cheese. Or "Wine&Cheese Party in a Can". We used to get the pigs and horses drunk on fermented apples. They seem to like fermented apples, the pigs mostly fall asleep, but the horses start walking sideways.
If bacon has become a thing you hate, then you're taking science too far. Beyond a certain point the returns of science cease to illuminate the human condition.
I'm content with the result that, by the third day, you hate bacon. That's all the science I care to absorb.
I'm betting you're thoroughly carb-deprived by now. How about you get yourself some Brownberry 12-grain bread and eat a loaf? Then maybe you'll be in some sort of condition to continue.
Double-yokers are interesting, but NO yokers are strangely exciting!
Partly because I never could separate eggs. Meringue!
"Eggcyclopedia"
OH! One weird thing that I saw in Mexico was truckloads of marigolds! They told me that the marigolds were to add to chicken feed in America to make the yolks yellow. Mexican eggs are sold by the kilo-weight not by the dozen, and the yolks are very pale without marigold petals.
separating eggs is easy. you can do the scoop the yolk out with the egg shell method, or drain the snot part through your fingers (or fork) method. I'm a complete spaz and even i can do that.
I always break the damned yolks! In the store, they sell the separated whites in a milk carton. Also, they sell powderd egg products for chickens like me. Maybe I should practice some more, but every time I try to separate the yolk out, I break it!
Scientists are a fickle, conservative bunch, and research or findings that might upset their already-established views are usually not accepted with open arms, nor the findings' finders given their due respect--and they will go to any length to discredit said finders. Therefore, Sean, in order to soften the blow of your experiment (i.e., that bacon may, at some point, become unlikable) and shape it to be a bit more pallatable to that mossback crew, you may want to stick with the traditional spelling of "consuming" in the fourth paragraph, rather than your more radical variation.
"pallatable"?
put down that stone and get back in yer glass house mister
"precious precious essence of pig..."
Sean, you're a literary genious. I'm going to search for places to use the phrase "precious precious essence of pig" in my day-to-day life.
Plus "fickle" and "conservative" don't really go together. And that's the intellectual capacity I was exhibiting when I wrote a final this morning.
They told me there'd be people like you, Lou. People who'd get scared. People who'd try and get me to turn back. People who'd hate to see me succeed, to see my rise above their own ranks. Much like the way one's old drug addict buddies will try and get him to come back huff glue in the alley with him, so are you trying to get me to return to my stuff-other-than-bacon-eating ways. Well it's not going to work, mister. It's a tough path, but it's the straight and narrow for me. Where would we be today if so many scientists before us just up and quit before their research was complete? We'd be living in mud houses and eating bugs, just like the savages of countries lesser than our own, that's where we'd be. No sir, mister.
you might want to try turkey bacon. lots of us Jews eat it. at least you'd still be eating bacon, but you'd be eating something besides pig.
I like the smoked turkey a lot. Smoked anything is good. Smoke sable, mmmmmmm! Soy bacon bits are OK, but I like tofu fried in soy sauce. There are some squares of cooked tofu that are great travel food. I went to look for soy bacon, and I found a recipe that I'll try:
1/2 cup soy sauce (low-sodium if available)
1 Tbs Nutritional yeast flakes
1 Tbs Maple syrup
1/2 Tbs Liquid Smoke
1/2 lb extra-firm regular tofu
I had a friend who liked ricotta with maple syrup, so I might try tofu with maple syrup, too.
But I don't think that I'll be able to swear off prosciutto!
I once spotted bacon fat, and let me tell you, was it grand. (Spotting oil & cooking bacon at the same time... one thing leads to another...)
