Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115116 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Review
"What a misguided few might still regard as a guilty pleasure, Joanna Pruess has ennobled with a panache usually reserved for foie gras, caviar, and truffles, to which we can now joyously add, BACON!"--John Mariani, food and travel columnist, Esquire magazine

"I have always considered pork to be an extremely versatile meat, but Joanna Pruess's brilliant book has inspired a myriad of ideas! She has explored and exposed the wonders of bacon, and her approach to cuisine is nothing short of imaginative and entertaining!"--Charlie Trotter "Wake up and smell the bacon! Joanna Pruess has done it again with an irresistible compendium of innovative and delicious bacon recipes. Pigs of the world, be proud!"
-Faith Middleton, The Food Schmooze, WNPR “If one is to be compromised, one of the better ways is to be Seduced by Bacon...an alluring prospect.”--Publisher’s Weekly – Online Cookbook Listing
"…charmingly exuberant…"--John Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter

From the Inside Flap
Our love affair with bacon is passionate and enduring.
Even its smell can transport us back to comforting times, and it has a taste like no other. Bacon evokes memories of caramel, wood fires, and mouth-watering home-cooked meals. Oh, those delectably succulent, salty, crunchy morsels!
Almost every dish can be made better with bacon. Not only does it flatter savories, it’s an admirable complement to sweets as well. Seduced by Bacon offers sensuous dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and any time in between. Entice your guests with Pecan Waffles smothered in a Caramel-Bacon Sauce, arouse all your senses with an Open-Faced Cheddar & Turkey Bacon Sandwich with Beer-Glazed Onions, and finally, bewitch your taste buds with a French Apple Tart with Cheddar Cheese Crust & Sweet Brittle Topping.
Every cook and connoisseur—in fact, anyone who eats—will savor the delectable recipes, tantalizing photographs, and fascinating bits of “baconry” in this fresh and innovative cookbook.

About the Author
Joanna Pruess has written for the food column of The New York Times Magazine, Food & Wine, Food Arts, Saveur, and The Washington Post, and was a regular contributor to the AP syndicate. She develops recipes for specialty food manufacturers in the U.S. and France. She lives in the Bronx, NY, with her husband, Bob Lape, WCBS and Crain’s New York restaurant critic.

Customer Reviews

Revolting, dispicable to rever such unclean flesh...
I'm joking of course. But in this politically correct world, we must be considerate of all viewpoints. Such effusive praise for what a large percentage of the world's population consider an abomination is ahem, indelicate. I love bacon and the book serves up delicious delicacies that showcases the versatility of pork belly. I use to butcher as a kid and watch my grandfather cure bacon as did his father before him continuing back to the 1740's of Virginia.
I host an annual pig roast for my co-workers in Virginia, but in the interest of inclusivity will have to foregoe it in the future to keep from offending certain sensibilites. Ah how the world turns and our country changes...

There is another pending cookbook on bacon that is due to release Nov. 2007. It looks worth keeping an eye out for.

Very Nice Book on Delectable Subject. Could have been better.
`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.

Smell the bacon!
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.