Save our bacon from Marco

For all Marco Pierre White's talent, surely microwaving bacon is wrong. Isn't it?

There's no cure for this sort of behaviour. Tim Hayward answers his critics. Photograph: Linda Nylind

I love Marco Pierre White. He was the first British chef to make cooking look sexy; the first to make chefs look like artists not knuckle-dragging, begrimed sustenance wranglers. The word 'passionate' is overused in cooking but he uniquely deserves it. He's articulate, engaging, arrogant and mad - an ideal combination. Which is why I'm so stunned by his heresy.

As I watched last night's edition of Marco's Great British Feast, with hot, salty tears in my eyes, Marco Pierre White sat in a cabman's hut and ordered his bacon microwaved.

I care deeply about bacon. Anthony Bourdain, a man with enviable experience of addictive substances, calls it 'the gateway protein' - one so tempting that it brings vegetarians back into the fold. Streaky, back or middle, sweet or regular cure, rind on or off, crisp or floppy - like other parts of a proper breakfast, there are almost endless variations on the theme each of which is defended with partisan zeal by bacon lovers.

Cooking it should be simple. Of its nature bacon has sufficient fat to fry itself so it should be possible to drop it into a hot, dry pan and immediately produce lovely crisp edges, frilled with a light, lacey Maillard crust. Health nuts can grill bacon so some of the fat is lost. This seems pretty counter-intuitive to me but they obviously have their reasons - perhaps they collect it in a pint glass for a celebratory drink when they get back from the gym. Chefs who need flat cooked bacon for reasons of ponciness or presentation, bake it between two trays. Diner cooks sometimes use old flat-irons to hold the meat flat to the griddle. There's a chippy in Bristol that deep fries it.

There are plenty of choices there, plenty of sound combinations. Why would it be necessary for a man with MPW's towering talent and stunning technical ability to go so insanely off-piste? Microwaving bacon, if my interpretation of McGee is correct, would sort of steam it from within. There's no crispiness, no caremelisation, just a hot floppy cured product.

Pray God this is the work of some publicity weasel at ITV. Let it be a stunt, like Delia's tinned mince, to get the show talked about rather than the man's real preference. He's a idol. Watching him microwave bacon is like catching your dad cheating at scrabble - the

disappointment makes respect impossible.

Surely I'm not alone in this. Microwaving bacon is wrong ... isn't it?