"It has survived 60 years of bacon fat," says Tony.
This volume is really the story of the story of that book – the tale of how, as a 21-year-old Cambridge undergraduate, Peppiatt inveigled his way into the painter's Soho drinking circle and how he subsequently became, for 30 years, one of Bacon's primary confidants.
One lucky fan won a year's supply of bacon.
But a few weeks into the new year a different type of Bacon lover gets a shot at bliss: fans of the actor Kevin Bacon.
This week, Bon Appétit Management Company vowed that by 2015, none of the three million pounds of pork we serve a year (including 800,000 pounds of bacon) will come from hogs confined in gestation crates.
The bacon cheeseburger has turned into a fast-food icon (Burger King alone buys more than five million pounds of bacon a year), and the high-protein, sugar-busting diet faddists positively applaud bacon binges.
Unfortunately, the average American consumes about 18 pounds of bacon each year.
Interspersed throughout the book are bits about bacon from comedian Jim Gaffigan, and random information such as that "Cracker Barrel serves 124 million slices of bacon per year".
If, during 50 years, I have been critical of Bacon's work, it is because I was convinced he painted in order to shock, both himself and others.
Horace Walpole, who visited Whichnoure in 1760, reported that the flitch had not been claimed for thirty years and that a real flitch of bacon was no longer kept ready at the manor.
