'Baconhenge' Rituals Confound Historians

The exact origins of "Baconhenge" food sculpting are as murky as the history of the British stone monument which inspired the obscure breakfast art. Carin Huber, editor of AntiCraft magazine, probes the not-so-ancient pastime.



In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people, the Grannies. No one knows who they were or what they were doing, but their legacy lives on, knitted into the doilies and tea cozies of crafts. But one woman is out to degranify (ph) crafts. Carin Huber is an editor and project designer for AntiCraft, a quarterly online magazine dedicated to crafting degranfieid. Hello, Carin.

Ms. CARIN HUBER (Editor, AntiCraft): Good morning.

PESCA: And the reason that we bring you in now is that you have debuted a Stonehenge-inspired craft/food event, I call it. It is baconhenge. Tell me about baconhenge.

Ms. HUBER: Well, baconhenge is, in the barest-bone sense, it's bacon wrapped around french toast sticks. There you go. It's baconhenge.

PESCA: But it's so much more than that. Does it approximate in look the real Stonehenge?

Ms. HUBER: Well, it certainly brings it to mind. Unfortunately, the scale of the french toast sticks that I used as the base is such that in order to actually recreate bacon - or Stonehenge, it would have to, you know, take up your entire dining table, rather than simply the space in the skillet.

PESCA: Sure. I believe there are either 18 feet Stonehenge triptychs, or 18 feet high, though they have been, you know, produced at 18 inches, much to the chagrin of certain musicians. But my question with baconhenge, is it delicious, as opposed to looking good?

Ms. HUBER: It is, actually. Of course, you have to like bacon and like french toast sticks. But it actually tastes pretty good.

PESCA: Really? Calories and cholesterol, is it true that those things only half count if you eat it exactly on the solstice?

Ms. HUBER: Well, you know, I've heard that if you keep high-calorie objects in a high place, they become lower calorie because the calories are afraid of heights and they jump out.

PESCA: I believe the ancients actually shared that belief with you, and there is wisdom in the ancients. Now, I know that Stonehenge is based - is built on the ground, and there is some research done into what's in the ground. But baconhenge is built on a frittata. Why a frittata?

Ms. HUBER: It seemed like a good idea at the time. I needed something that the skewers that support baconhenge could stick into, but that still kind of made sense with the food thing.

PESCA: The real Stonehenge, the latest research shows that it was perhaps a burial ground, perhaps of a ruling family. Knowing this, can you incorporate that somehow into something buried in the frittata of baconhenge?

Ms. HUBER: Oh, well, sure, I suppose you could incorporate, you know, any sort of meat that you wanted to, although I'm not sure why you'd want to add more meat to it.

PESCA: I think you might, especially like a delicious breakfast sausage, if it's all from one family of sausages.

Ms. HUBER: Oh, that's true, that's true. That would make a fine monument to the dead.

PESCA: Any other astronomy-inspired crafts?

Ms. HUBER: Not so far. But I'm sure something will come up.

PESCA: Yeah, I'll throw this one out there, take it if you want, Horsehead Nebula Jell-O Mold.

Ms. HUBER: Oh, not so much into the Jell-O thing.

PESCA: Oh, really?

(Soundbite of laughter)

PESCA: Well, what are you into? You coming out with anything beyond the website?

Ms. HUBER: Actually, there is an AntiCraft book put out by the originators of the AntiCraft, Renee Rigdon and Zabet Stewart. And the book is called "AntiCraft: Knitting, Beading and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister."

PESCA: All right. Carin Huber, editor and project designer for AntiCraft and the creator of baconhenge. Thank you, Carin.

Ms. HUBER: Thanks. Have a good day.

PESCA: And on the BPP website, we have pictures from all angles of baconhenge. And I think we're going to try to recreate one, and who do you think we could get to eat a bacon-based product around here? Hm, yeah, that's why we invented Dan Pashman. Coming up, we will be talking about balloon twisters. This is the Bryant Park Project from NPR News.






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