Saturday, September 01, 2012

Weekend Whimsy

Not only is today the first day in September, but it's also the first Saturday in September. You know what that means, don't you? It's International Bacon Day! Oh is my tummy anticipating the celebration! It is the world's most favorite meat and ranks up there in popularity with Chocolate as a desired taste-bud treat. I couldn't let the day go by without sharing one or two tidbits about Bacon in language and in the pan...

  Bring home the bacon: To triumphantly achieve some plan or object, perhaps by winning a prize or race. This phrase has two possible origins.
      1. The first goes back several hundred years to the village of Dunmow in Essex where, it is said, in AD 1111 a noble woman offered a prize of a side of bacon, known locally as a flitch, to any man from anywhere in England who could honestly say that he had had complete marital harmony for the preceding year and a day. In over 500 years there were only eight winners. The prize was re-established in the mid 19th century (1858) but ceased to be offered with the closure of the local bacon factory in the 1980s.
      2. The second is probably the most known explanation. It comes from the ancient sport of catching a greased pig at country fairs - the winner kept the pig.

  Saved My Bacon :Escape from injury; avoid harm, especially to one's body. Bacon, even in Medieval times, was a prime prized piece of meat. Actually, during that era the word Bacon related to the entire pig. So if you had the cured meat hanging by your hearth and the house caught fire or a thief broke in it was lucky to escape with your bacon! So much so that bacon was once slang for the human body and escaping any type of bad even came to mean you saved your bacon!

 Suite 101 has a great Bacon glossary and several bacon recipes. Take a look if you are tempted to indulge in the more creative culinary uses of the meat during the Labor Day Weekend. Anyway you enjoy bacon, I know it will have you going Weee weeee weeee all the way home!


 Enjoy your weekend!

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