Flash in the Pan

The words are almost good to eat.

I put the bacon into the pan.
It lies there, lank and perfectly relaxed.
After a few minutes, though, a marvellous transformation
starts: the bacon begins to whisper, then hiss,
sinks down, becomes transparent, bubbles and snaps,
and babbles to itself, turning crinkled and brown and stiff.

As good as this description is from Tom Waymman's Free Time it is not followed by a description of the eating of the bacon. The "Kitchen Poem" does go on to describe the making of a salad and the partaking of a crisp stalk of celery. But what I remember most is the beginning and the implicit analogy between cooked bacon and old age.

And so for day 1338
12.08.2010

Teleny Tantalizing

Peter Fryer in Secrets of the British Museum provides an excerpt from Teleny which reads like a sumptuous meal described by Brillat-Savarin. Almost a set piece.

Teleny's kisses up and down his friend's back resemble 'a rain of rose-leaves falling from some full blown flower'.

'Now,' says Teleny, 'let us go in the next room and see if we can find something to eat. . . . I cannot give you a banquet.' Nevertheless they find Cancale oysters, 'of an immense size', a dusty bottle of Sauterne; a pâte de foie gras highly scented with Perigord truffles; a partridge with paprika; a salad made out of a huge Piedmont truffle; a bottle of exquiste dry sherry; a dish of Seville oranges, bananas, and pineapples, flavoured with Maraschino and covered with sifted sugar; a bottle of sparkling champagne; tiny cups of fragrant and scalding Mocha coffee; and a bowl of ararak, curaçao, and whisky punch flavoured with many hot invigorating spices. One begins to wonder what appetites this book is really intended to arouse. The food, by the way, is served in 'dainty blue old Delft and Savona ware, for he had already heard of my hobby for old majorlica.'

And so for day 511
07.05.2008