Customer Reviews

Seduced by Bacon: Recipes & Lore about America's Favorite Indulgence

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I feel vindicated! I knew I loved bacon for several good reasons, and now we know that there are others out there just like me including the likes of James Beard & Julia Child. I love that the author educates and entertains us with the history of bacon. I'm a picture book lover and this book is loaded. Even if you can't cook (like me) you've got to try some of these recipes (the Bacon-Popped Popcorn is outrageously good).

Very cute Bacon Bits: "My favorite animal is bacon." - Fran Lebowitz
Five Yums Up!

I've always loved filet with bacon wrapped around it. And there are bacon hamburgers, and BLTs. Then a few years ago I discovered shrimp wrapped in bacon. Then I saw the cover of this book, and that was all it took. The cover has a picture of Salmon, with some kind of glaze and a couple of slices of bacon draped over it. What a great idea! - The recipie is on page 94.

And on page 105 there's Jamaican Jerked Shrimp, mushrooms & tomatoes (with bacon of course). The good thing here is that you don't even have to wrap the bacon around the shrimp.

Then there's chicken, turkey, lamb, short ribs, rabbit. And who would have thought of a peanut-butter and bacon sandwich -- just wait 'til you try it.

By now you should have the idea. Here's about a hundred different ways to use bacon to enhance foods. Some I haven't tried yet, but am going to. A couple really have me wondering: Pecan-Brown Sugar and Bacon Ice Cream. Ice Cream?

`Seduced by Bacon' by culinary writer Joanna Pruess, with assistance from her restaurant critic husband, Bob Lape, deals with what is easily the tastiest of Gentile culinary pleasures. It is certainly a time-honored tradition to dedicate an entire book to one very specialized subject such as lobster, mushrooms, or muffins. The only problem with this subject in a book of its own is the very popularity of the subject. This popularity means that virtually every other large cookbook will already have spent lots of space dedicated to the subject. All the most famous bacon recipes, such as the BLT, pork and beans, and bacon wrapped scallops will already have been done to death. And, anyone with a reasonably good cookbook collection will already have most of these recipes.
The well-worn subject is helped a bit by covering `bacon' in the broadest sense, including pancetta, Canadian bacon, English and Irish bacon (actually almost the same as Canadian bacon), gypsy bacon, ventricle (French for pancetta), guanciale (Italian for pig's jowls) and even prosciutto (which, to be sure, is not really bacon at all. The book also spends the expected time in talking about all the different ways bacon (standard American restaurant, standard, or thick-sliced) bacon is prepared. Like so many `cursory' treatments of obligatory material, I really miss a lot of fine details and illustrations. The biggest oversight is the fact that the good authors never get around to telling us how we can actually make our own bacon! This, I think, is not out of place, as virtually all good books on fresh sausage actually tell us how to make several different kinds of fresh sausage. And, my hero, Alton Brown even dedicated an entire `Good Eats' show to the details of actually making bacon. While I have no plans to make bacon myself, knowing exactly how it's done goes a long way in helping to find the very best specimens.
But, for a relatively modestly list priced book, this still has much to offer in original recipes, as Ms. Pruess makes a point in saying that the has not collected all the `classic' recipes she can, but has concocted many of her own, although almost all are variations on standards, and, to be sure, there are certain standards, like the above mentioned BLT and pork and beans which cannot be denied. The recipe chapters cover:
Breakfast & Baked Goods
Appetizers & Snacks
Salads & Soups
Sandwiches
Seafood
Poultry & Meat
Pasta, Beans & Grains
Vegetable Side Dishes
Desserts
The last chapter of four recipes may be the most surprising. Bacon's high fat content goes well with rich desserts, but its salty side would seem to ruin the sweet stuff. Of the four, the combination with apple and nutmeg-seasoned cantaloupe seems to work, but the ice cream and combination with chocolate I leave to the Iron Chef competitors and their judges to taste.
The book has many `bacon bits', sidebars of miscellaneous info, all of it interesting, but not very deep. If you love bacon and can get this cheap, it's a great buy.

A whole cookbook just about bacon sounds rather odd; but when you factor in the idea that bacon can be served to compliment sweets, as well as form a component of savory dishes, you can see why a whole book dedicated to this culinary topic would be well warranted. Full-page color close-up photos blend with dishes ranging from Firecrackers - a cheese and shallot-enhanced bacon dish - to Old-Fashioned Shepard's Pie which includes bacon with its other ingredients. Even Pecan Waffles come with a Caramel-Bacon Sauce in this delicious survey expanding the dishes that can be enhanced by bacon. Dedicated bacon lovers and general-interest libraries strong in cookbooks will love Joanna Pruess and Bob Lape's "Seduced By Bacon"!.

Diane C. Donovan

California Bookwatch

Ordered this book as a gift for my bacon-loving husband. However, we did not find any recipes we would actually make. They looked and sounded beautiful, but included fancy ingredients and complicated steps. We were looking for a cookbook with family-friendly recipes. This book is better suited for gourmet cooks and foodies.

This was a gift I gave to a Friend that she chose through Elfster. We used Elfster to organize our Secret Santa this year. Even though I placed the order the same week as the party, and the projected delivery date was as far out as a week after the party, it was still delivered within a few days using standard ground. Me likie!

This is such a fine cookbook. It has mouth watering recipes with great pictures. We bought it as a gift for my brother who thinks everything is better with bacon or vitamin C. He is a great cook and will love this addition to his collection. Naturally I had to try some of the recipes before giving it to him.

The book itself seems quite adequate and what I expected it to be. However, the cover was scratched and I actually had to think to make sure I had purchased a new copy (which I did). There was also a bend in one corner. If this specific copy had been in a book store and was the last one, I would have passed it over for something else. I'm quite disappointed as this is a Christmas gift and as such I do not have time to return it and get another copy. Not in the condition that I would expect of a brand-new book.

I flipped through the book and it had beautiful full-color full-page photos.

I bought this as a gift for someone, so I cannot rate it as well as they might, but I flipped through the pages, and it seemed like a great book. Sure made me hungry for bacon! Nice hard cover and good colorful pages. Fast shipping.

Yum...one can never have too many recipes for this delish food and THIS book with beautiful pictures and recipes fits the bill! I could literally...smell the bacon.