Curly Food Tastes Better: BACON

And so it came to pass that I wondered what makes curly fries taste so much better than chips, crisps, vodka, and mash, and realised it must be one thing and one thing alone. They are curly. Surely all foods can be made to taste better by rendering them curly? And if not, surely a lot of fun can be had trying?

Truly, it was by a stroke of genius that I came upon the idea of securing curled bacon to a grill with stationary supplies. For comparison I chose to twist one piece in a spiral fashion and another in a more heavily curved arrangement, and left a sliver of meat as control bacon. Firmly clamped into the binder clips, I roasted them in the centre of the oven for twenty minutes at around 180°C (355°F)

While the slivers of pig fizzed and gurgled away, two slices of Kingsmill 50/50 underwent a little pre-treatment. On the left we have a blend of tomato and barbecue sauces, while on the right there's shredded jalapenos and capers with a mix of hotdog mustard and... more barbecue sauce.

Et voila! The control piece of bacon appears to have shrivelled up and died, but the heavily curled piece is holding strong. The longer spiral went a little dry and stretched itself out, perhaps suggesting that giving it a little more slack might have been a good idea.

After briefly forgetting the binder clips were metal and CAN BURN ME, the porky goodness was extracted from the grill. The longer spiral snapped in the process, and that little shrivel of burnt fat at the top looked too tempting and too much like a luxury pork scratching to make it into the final sandwich. NOM.

Absolute perfection. It held its shape, came out in good strong colours, retained the chewy bacon moisture, and even had the good grace to wind up looking a little bit like a lady's privates. What is seen can never be unseen.

The finished article! How good was it? Well as you can see from the picture it was so irresistible that I was over halfway done before I remembered to take a picture of it. Curly bacon: success!

So what food's next for the curling treatment? Are there any foods I can combine to make one single uber-curl or curls-within-curls? I've got a few ideas, but if you have any suggestions drop them in comments below

Nick

xx