For our first anniversary, I took Rachel to London for a long weekend. I found a bargain airfare on Iceland Air and an amazing deal at one of London’s best hotels, landing a $500 a night room for $80. The only flaw with the plan? We couldn’t afford to eat anywhere in or near the hotel.
We found another neighborhood fifteen minutes walk away that was decidely downmarket. In a greasy deli, we ordered bacon and egg sandwiches for 90 pence apiece. Given the price of the sandwiches, I assumed they’d be tiny, so I ordered two. The counterman just laughed at me, before handing me two half-kilogram bundles of egg, bacon and bread.
We’ve discovered that one of our local supermarkets carries “Irish” back bacon, allowing us to recreate our English breakfast experience at will. The recipe follows:
Take one package (8 oz/ 220 grams) of back bacon. Fry on griddle until slightly browned on both sides.
Back bacon is surprisingly devoid of holy LARD – it gives up far more water than fat. Remove meat from griddle, add bacon fat (saved from previous bacon adventures) and fry six eggs in grease. Season eggs with salt and pepper.
Assemble eggs, bacon and sauce on toasted hard rolls. In Europe, we’d use brown sauce – in the US, where such a thing is anathema, we use Worchestershire sauce, or A-1 steak sauce.
Serves one bacontarian and one loving wife.
mmmmmmm, hungry, ME!
Oh, my! This both torturous and rapturous to read before eating breakfast.
I covered this a while ago on my blog:
http://epeus.blogspot.com/20021001epeusarchive.html#85614206
At last! A site that knows what’s what! Would life be worth living without bacon? No.
Thanks to Jason Kottke for the link to this site, which I shall read every day without fail.
The reason for my comment, aside from all this gush, is to suggest the greatest of all bacon sandwiches: peanut butter and bacon on white bread toast. You must give this a try at once. It is better than a hangover cure: it is a go-to-bed-now cure. With one of these under your belt, the desire to continue partying rapidly fades into a longing for pillows.
(Peanut butter is perhaps not on every food store shelf in Denmark. I’ve never eaten Nutella – perhaps it is too sweet? Real peanut butter is not hard to make in a food processor, but perhaps you’d want proof that it’s worth it.)
A warm welcome, R J Keefe! I’ll certainly keep your recipe in mind. I’ve yet to consume something that causes my desire to continue partying to rapidly fade, so I’ll consider myself an edge-case when I try it out.
I appreciate that’s all the bacon you could get to replicate the English bacon sarnie, but you’re being shortchanged. We in England are increasingly rebelling against the water-packed processed bacon you have been forced to buy. It isn’t porky enough, its fats are unusable for subsequent egg-frying, its rind never crispens. Instead,we are demanding bacon prepared toexacting Enlgish standards – dry-dured for example. Let us shun bargain bacon: spend the money and you get back bacon of the sort nature intended – flavoursome and fatty, generating grease sufficient to fry any number of eggs. May I add, however, that this is a blog of genius. My colleagues and I – we work on one of the comment pages of a UK broadsheet paper – spent our lunch hour one days last week discussing which of the four “classic” meats – pork, beef, chicken and lamb – was the greatest. Pork was the only one to receive two votes. My love for pork has no bounds. I would sell up to two members of my immediate family for perfect crackling.
Though as a child I found this to be an awful sandwich in light of all the other lunches consumed by my fellow cafferteria mates. My mother would often send in my lunch box a sandwich made of not only bacon and peanutbutter, but would add to it mayonaise on a light wheat bread called Hollywood Bread. Why the bread was called Hollywood bread I don’t know,other than perhaps it was consumed by people who wanted to be like those in “Hollywood” I have not had this sandwich since I was in the 6th grade, not looking to have one either. I do like bacon, but not in conjuction with peanutbutter and mayonaise. But someone reading this may like the combination. Bon Appetiet!
That Irish stuff looked cheap and nasty. Once you’ve had the real deal – freerange drycured – you can never look back. The bacon ‘butty’ is the greatest hangover cure known to man-kind. HP sauce is a must – even though it’s just been bought by Heinz (I’m wondering if they thought they were buying the ACTUAL houses of Parliment???).
Hollywood Bread! I loved it when I was a kid. That’s all my Dad ever bought — got it at the 2nd day store. I was busy for a while wishing for “white” bread, but very soon came to appreciate the various grains in the bread. To this day I prefer a “heavier” bread over the white cotton. I’d love to have some Hollywood Bread again. Though, Milton’s Bread is about the best around — even at $4 a loaf!
Hollywood Bread, I ate lots of it as a kid and then it was gone. Guess what they still make it in Canada. We vacation each year in Ontario at a lake near Lakefied on the Trent Severn Waterway. The IGA store in Lakefield carries several varieties of Hollywood Bread and we always buy enough to bring some home. It’s still the best.
Please let me know about the source of Hollywood Bread! We have been tring to find something about it for several years. I guess a lot of other people have too! Why doesn’t someone start to produce it again??
Just discovered this site, while browsing for Hollywood Bread!!!!!!! What I wouldn,t give for just a bite of it toasted with butter. I too was broght up on Hollywood bread. I was raised in Northern Ontario, and now live in the Maritimes and hve never found it here.
Hollywood Bread in Canada is made by Dempsters, Canada Bread, London, ON and is available in IGA stores according to a search on Google.
Where in Toronto Canada can I get traditional British or Irish back bacon? my mouth is watering for the taste of it, no matter what bread it is on.
Yummyyyyyyyyyyyy
Hello, i must say that is a very good looking sandwich you have there. it’s rather funny as i woke up this morning at about 330 am and it’s now 600am and i just finished a huge bacon egg and cheese sandwich before looking for a site dedicated to what i call “cholesterol sandwiches” lol. i don’t know how they are in the UK, as i’m in the US and our bacon is from what i gather somewhat different than your’s. although, the comment earlier about your “irish” bacon being too watery, i feel awful for you. i mean, only with true bacon can you get that taste, texture and of course, the grease. the sandwich i just devoured was very good and it fixed the hunger pang’s that were almost too unbearable. well, i need to run, i’ll check in from time to time to see what is going on. thanks very much for letting me post on your website.
sean ( sae )
This post made me feel so Hungry. Yummy!!!
Walmart in Ontario also sells Hollywood Bread. At least my local one does. I’ve also found it in Zehrs and IGA locally. I’m trying to find out if you can find Hollywood Bread in the Vancouver area as my daughter lives there and has been trying to find it but isn’t having any luck.
Gail
I, too, have been searching for Hollywood Bread, a wholesome low-calorie bread with 40 calories per slice. It’s not just the nutritional info, but the taste. I live in Dunnellon, FL, near Ocala, and would love to know where I might find this bread. Barbara