Bacon Cookies. (I wish I were kidding)

Who: me
What: Breakfast Cookies, from Workbasket magazine, Sept 1973
Where: my kitchen
When: this morning
Why: God only knows.

Being a fan of all things vintage, I bought a bunch of Workbasket Magazines from 1973, expecting granny square afghans and ugly sweaters on models with hair helmets and bad sunglasses. I found all that. But I also found that there were recipes. Lots of recipes. I would have skimmed past them if it weren't for the captions on the 2-inch-square photos. The first one I came upon was something about a zesty tomato and frankfurter sauce served over macaroni. I started reading them out loud to Mr. Deplume while he was driving us somewhere, and we had some good laughs.

Then I came upon this: "Why not have a cookie at breakfast time? Bacon, cereal and orange juice flavor these."

bacon? cereal? orange juice?

I looked at the recipe. It also has raisins. I immediately thought of the line from one of my favorite movies, Better Off Dead, "It's got raisins in it. You like raisins."

After Easter dinner, I showed these magazines to my family, all of whom also laughed. No wonder the 1970's were so screwed up: look what we were eating! In the course of that Easter afternoon, I came to realize that I must make the bacon cookies.

And I did.

The recipe is simple: mix flour, nut-like-cereal (think Grape Nuts), sugar and baking powder, then add butter, egg, orange juice concentrate, bacon and raisins. Mix. Bake. Enjoy.

And enjoy, I did not.

My three-year-old boy actually found them to be tasty. I'll pass them out to adventurous friends and family, and will share their reactions here, in case I'm just imagining that they are bad. The texture is actually pretty good. And the raisins aren't really even noticeable. But one thing is clear to me: orange juice and bacon should NOT co-mingle.

not. not. not.

See, even the cover model think they look like a bad idea. She's giving me the "look" and clutching that cardigan, planning to use it to protect her from the hickory smoked horror.



I have found out that there is another, modern, well-thought-out bacon cookie recipe out there, the bacon maple cookie, although the idea of chocolate chips and bacon sounds bad to me, too. But I'll probably try them someday, too. I'm still holding out hope, as I'm a true fan of bacon. It really is a wondrous meat-like substance.