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Bacon Curls
Place thin strips of Bacon on a board and with a broad-bladed knife press strips out as thin as possible. Roll each slice into a curl and fasten with a wooden toothpick. Cook until crisp and delicately brown in hot Bacon fat deep enough to cover the curls of bacon. Drain on brown paper and remove toothpicks.
A garnish rather than a dish: bacon rolled tight, deep-fried in its own fat, and set on a salad or a cream soup. A few details are worth knowing before you start.
- The hinge: press the strips thinStretching the slices with the flat of a broad knife is what lets them roll tight and cook through without unwinding. Streaky bacon sliced thin works; thick-cut will not stretch and will spring open in the fat.
- ToothpicksUse plain wooden picks, not the coloured or lacquered kind. Remove them while the curls are still warm, before the fat sets and glues them in.
- Fat temperatureThe original assumes you have rendered bacon fat on hand. It gives no temperature; a moderate frying heat, in the region of 350F, suits, and much hotter will brown the exterior before the interior fat renders.
- An alternative that behaves betterRolled curls can also be baked at 400F in the cups of a muffin tin, which holds their shape and renders them evenly without a pan of hot fat.
- Brown paperGrocery-bag paper was the standard draining surface of the period. Paper towels or a wire rack over a tray do the job with less risk of ink or glue transfer.
- Hot fat, small piecesBacon carries moisture and will spit. Keep the pan no more than a third full and lower the curls in with tongs rather than dropping them.
- Yield and useA pound of thin-sliced bacon gives roughly thirty curls. Two or three per plate is plenty, set on tomato or grapefruit salad, floated on a cream soup, or arranged around an egg dish. They hold their crispness perhaps an hour and are best fried close to serving.
Bacon curls belong to the American luncheon books of the early twentieth century, when the midday meal for women's clubs, bridge parties and card luncheons was judged as much on how the plate looked as on what was on it. A book aimed at hostesses entertaining luncheon and supper guests is really a book of garnishes and small composed plates, and bacon appears here not as a breakfast meat but as decoration with flavour: something crisp and salty to break up a plate of chilled fruit, aspic or creamed chicken. Bacon drippings were commonly kept in a crock by the stove and used as an ordinary frying medium. Curls of this kind filter into domestic cookbooks of this period along with radish roses, celery curls and butter balls.