British Researchers Determine Perfect Bacon Sandwich

It’s all too easy to slam the Brits for their native cuisine. They boil their meats and expertize in the bland and flavorless. Word is that they have the worst pizza known to the world, kind of a tip-off. They’ve become huge devotees of curries because of the large Indian and Pakistani populations who import foodstuffs with actual flavor. However, where the British do get it right, they don’t mess around, and it an be summed up in one word: bacon.

As reported in the New York Times, a 50 member strong team from Leeds University, as subsidized by the Danish Bacon and Food Council, recently spent upwards of 1,000 man hours to produce conclusive results on what makes the very best crowd-pleasing bacon sandwich. Money well spent.

The variations included different cooking processes, including grilling, baking, frying, and broiling, as well as four different types of bacon: smoked, unsmoked, streaky and thick cut (I assume “streaky” means lots of fat).

The Leeds U. team each consumed four to six bacon sandwiches per day for up to for days. And, presumably, got paid for it. And what did the experiment yeild, besides elevated cholesterol and an increased potential for heart attack?

It concluded that the best bacon butties were made with crisply grilled, not-too-fat bacon between thick slices of white bread.

Something tells me this final analysis could be refuted by the right American team, assuming that we could assemble one. But what self-respecting Yank would possibly volunteer to take part in such a deliciously unhealthy ambition, even if it is for posterity? Nudge-wink, say no more!

The Perfect Bacon Sandwich Decoded: Crisp and Crunchy [nytimes.com]