Congratulations
What can I say - a great picture. And a great sarnie: who gives a toss about God's will anyway. I, too like a bit of flavour in my bread. Nice wholesome baps do it for me.
Our challenge to readers to provide proof of the ultimate bacon sarnie looks set to provoke even more controversy than the matter of the zenith of sliced pork/bread assemblages has already caused. In case you've missed the porcine polemic, our Bauernfrühstück versus bacon sarnie post-pub nosh deathmatch had experts up in arms …
I'm no puritan, as evidenced by my suggestion of ketchup and French mustard. It also appears to be back bacon, cooked until quite crispy but not cut-your-cheeks rock solid.
I would probably substitute the tea for black coffee. I'm more likely to drink the tea before going to bed to improve my chances of surviving the night.
The use of cotton wool factory bread to make Bacon Sarnies should rightly be considered a crime.
A good white loaf or roll is OK, the seeded wholemeal bap looks very good. Personally I'm torn between using Granary and Walnut or using a nice rich tomato bread for making the ultimate Bacon Butty.
Of course it has to be tea with your butty, coffee before or after or even coffee before and after are fine, but the art to making coffee is always to work on the principle of twice as much coffee and half as much water, but you need a big mug to go with you bacon butty and so that has to be tea.
Only things wrong with this picture are
a) where's the bloody ketchup!
b) how can anyone be awake enough to take a picture like that before they've eaten their bacon butty!
It's gotta be a combination of the following for my perfect bacon sarnie. I would love to get a picture up, but sadly I cannot get to the butchers until after work friday, too late for said contest.
thick smoked bacon, with the rind left on, this is of vital importance.
medium sliced White bread
Mozzarella
Cheddar
Shove teh bacon under the grill on a low heat. Toast the bread when one side of the bacon is cooked.
Flip the bacon and cook the over side slowly until the toast pops up.
Pile the mozella on one slice, chedder on the other.
Arrange the bacon so you can fit the toast on one side.
Wham the heat up to max to both melt the cheese, and crisp the bacon.
When the cheese is melted, take out from under the grill, and put on a dollop of BBQ sauce, spread the sauce about a bit, and then if the bacon is crisp enough / slightly burnt, layer it atop the cheesy toast. 3 slices minimum, 4 recommended.
And there you have a greasy bacony delicious mess. I'm a fan of smoked bacon, but you can use normal if you want, and I agree 100% quality of bacon is key, cheap bacon shrivels up into nothingness if you grill it, a nice thick slice keeps enough of its moisture while the rind can still crisp up.
"Maple syrup works extremely well with eggs, pancakes and large amounts of bacon."
Bollocks, you should turn in your Reg login now for such blasphemy. Americans do breakfast better than anyone else, but this habit of putting imitation maple syrup on savoury food is as much a cause for war as marrying their sisters and their habit of half-arsedly policing the rest of the world
"Americans do breakfast better than anyone else"
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call bullshit on that one. Having had the misfortune of living here for the last half a decade, I can testify to how crap breakfast is. American breakfasts are stodgy starchy nightmares, made palatable to the masses by excessive quantities of sweet stuff. Or cheese. Or both.
Waffles, American style pancakes, so called "English Muffins", muffins, doughnuts, grits, etc. Even "home fries". They are all just bad starchy disasters. The additional of things like maple syrup or processed cheese just adds to the disaster. And then, with the carb explosion for breakfast, they wonder why half the country is obese.
American bacon is a complete disaster as well. They seem to worship the stuff over here. But firstly you can only get streaky. It is ridiculously over-salted, far too thin, and turns into a crumbly dust whilst shedding gallons of fat when you try and cook it. When you eat it you can't taste the delicious pig, only the salt. You might as well just devour a salt cellar. Sausages are even worse. I go out of my way to get good European bacon for home. And I long for a nice English breakfast when I'm back in the home country.
The Serpent,
"Bollocks, you should turn in your Reg login now for such blasphemy."
An understandable, if incorrect, point of view. Bacon should not be adulterated with maple syrup, in the normal course of events. But I still maintain that bacon, eggs, those weird American pancakes, and possibly blueberries, does make a surprisingly edible breakfast. It's not my normal thing, but it's surprisingly nice. Not with country gravy though - biscuits and gravy is just being silly.
"Americans do breakfast better than anyone else"
But if you are going to demand the return of my El Reg login for the above, you will need to join me, in turning over yours, for this statement. The English breakfast is best. Although hash browns and haggis are nice additions from foreign parts, for which Johnny Foreigner is to be commended.
Standard American bacon is a crime against humanity. Grits are merely bad, they've not committed sacrilege against the holy pig, by turning it into salty cardboard.
American bacon is specific - thin strips of pork fried until crispy. That's how we roll. Although some of us (such as my wife) like bacon not so crispy. What I saw in the picture Lester provided isn't what we'd refer to as "bacon". No, I think we'd call that sliced ham, maybe "country" ham.
Grits are wonderful, especially when spooned on top of biscuit and gravy, then drizzle a little honey on top of it all. Yum.
Rubbish, you're all wrong, American bacon is like eating greasy Ryvita and with the traditional English you have to try to forget what black pudding is actually made from.
There's only one place that starts the day right and that's Brasil: cake for breakfast. Maybe some tropical fruit, too, but there's always cake and it's always like xmas morning when you see it.
I worked in construction for a short period and I can assure you, the formula goes thus:
Breakfast, or Lunch:
Bacon—this is surprisingly easy: fry, or grill, according to taste. There's no accounting for it, so there'll never be an ISO Bacon Standard.
Bread—sliced, white. Its purpose is to stop the grease from getting all over your fingers. It's a container that should taste of as little as possible. Like a soft, absorbent, somewhat spongy, form of water.
Butter—some, but not too much. Its purpose is to keep the bacon from falling out of its sliced-bread container.
Tea—comes in two varieties:
- In a plastic cup, from a machine in the site office, or,
- in a slightly chipped mug from the nearest greasy spoon café to the work site.
Add sugar to taste.
In the case of the machine-generated tea, continue to add sugar until plastic stirrer remains upright.
Condiments—according to taste, but should only ever be applied thinly. If you wanted to taste the ketchup instead of the bacon, you should have ordered tomato soup.
Salad—only if you have been advised to go on a diet by some killjoy with a degree and no f*cking clue what it's like working halfway up a half-finished block of flats in the middle of winter. Or the wife. (Girlfriends lack sufficient rank.)
See? Easy.
Simple and austere is the way to go with the bacon sandwich. You are, after all, using it to recover from the orgiastic excess of the previous night.
Bacon, with white bread (optionally lightly buttered), mug of tea, possible fresh orange juice to cut through the alcohol-induced numbness/furryness and awake the taste buds.
The only addition, which may improve the experience, is a second (or third) round of emergency backup-bacon if you find that you've inadvertently failed to prepare enough the first time.
We should form the Bacon Taliban. Dedicated to maintaining the purity and values of baconic perfection.
Down with the desecration of holy bacon! Burn the heretics!
Our creed is:
Beer is god's way of telling us that he loves us!
Bacon is god's way of telling us that he forgives us! For what we did with the beer he so generously gave us.
To put ketchup onto bacon is to spit on God!
Burn the heretics!
I am the Mullered Omah, and I have spoken!
Any time, any place, anywhere, but particularly when it's ruining perfectly good bacon. Would hang furry dice in a Ferrari?
Actually - don't answer that.
All you you need is plenty of lean bacon, a bit of mustard - preferably English rather than way-too-wussy French or Amer-cun (but y'know, in an emergency ..) - and some rustic BROWN bread, preferably with seeds or nuts. That bap looks pretty good.
Foamy white stuff just ain't bread - you'd be better off using a kitchen sponge.