Bring it back

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You know what occurred to me last night? I haven’t seen a bacon bit in YEARS. Yes, this is how my brain works. So I sent myself an email from my phone (as I do when things occur to me) with the title. Bacon bits? Bacon bits question mark INDEED.

WHERE ARE THEY? Where have all the bacon bits gone? They used to have a place in a sandwich bar selection – I know because my Mum had a cafe and I worked my arse off in that cafe from the ages of 14-17 making the odd sandwich. We had one personal favourite – the Chicken Special which had lots of chicken, avocado, mayo, alfalfa sprouts and BACON BITS. And if those crunchy morsels weren’t the tastiest addition than I don’t know what was. And alfalfa, where have YOU gone? Foccacia? Are you still even available as a carb option?

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Food trends come and go, the sundried tomato replaced with a semi dried until someone goes retro and throws them back into the mix and everyone gets excited by the retro. Breads, cupcakes who turn to macaroons who turn to cronuts…round and round we go like we do in fashion, music, art, culture.

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But this STILL stands. Where has the bacon bit gone? I’M BRINGING IT BACK. I’m going to make them today and I am going to throw them with gay abandon into a wrap at lunch time, a salad at dinner, shit I might even get some ranch dressing and go ala Pizza Hut salad bar circa 1983 when it was a RESTAURANT.

What would you like to see come back?
Anything that is welcome to stay in the past?…I’m looking in your direction smoked oyster on a Jatz
Anyone else send emails to themselves?

Comments

  1. I email myself constantly, it’s the only way I remember things.

    I’m off to find out how to make bacon bits now because I must have them on my lunch!

  2. Lazzarooch says

    Damn it! Now I’m having haloumi with bacon bits for lunch.

  3. Devilled eggs??? Oh the beauty! (Albeit a little fart inducing…)

  4. Mmmmmm, bacon bits….. Love the devils on horseback too – making these for Christmas. And yes, I am constantly emailing myself or even calling home and leaving a message, otherwise I forget stuff. Happy Thursday xo

  5. Oh the memories from my childhood…
    What about pickled onions? You know the ones in jars that you ordered with your fish n chips.
    Vol-au-vent? Where have they gone?
    I remember Mum used to make French Onion dip with a packet of French Onion Soup Mix. How fancy.

  6. Oh the salad bar at Pizza Hut! So they even have them anymore?

  7. Oh yes I email myself all the time:) esp now I’ve got preggie brain- I’d never remember anything otherwise!

    I’d love to see the French onion dip made from soup mix in a cob loaf,
    & ok it’s a commercial product but those visa versas lollies that were white w milk choc inside or brown w white choc inside:)

  8. Kirsty Michalzik says

    Always send emails to myself!
    Ummm.. I love “old” party food. Cheese cubes, kabana and pickled onions. I think plenty of people still do that though. So I’m not sure. I just love food, especially at parties <3

  9. I think you can still find bacon bits in the cat food aisle at the supermarket ๐Ÿ˜‰

  10. Last time I visited my Nan she served up a plate of Saos with tomato and cheese! Saos!!

  11. Tang. Fuck, I loved Tang.

    • TANG!!.. Loved that!!

      • I third the Tang! Gosh I loved that stuff.

        And for totally retro I recently saw at a children’s party the culinary delight that we called “Pigs in Blankets” growing up. For the (sadly) uninitiated this is cold mashed potato wrapped in a blanket of devon (no fancy mortadella allowed). Odd since the pig would be pink but it is on the outside but there you go. Other fancier pants parents were holding back but not this baby – so wrong and oh so right all at the same time…..mmmmm… add some bacon bits into the mash and it may well be the perfect food….(or not)!

        • Yuck, we used to get Tang served to us every afternoon tea time at boarding school, from a bucket no less!!!! I did love a good bacon bit though….

          • Jacqueline says

            Gosh never had it from a bucket – that would certainly kill the magic – it was “treat food” at our house growing up. I would have been so jealous if I knew elsewhere girls were getting to drink it out of a bucket! On the bacon bit front don’t they still pop up in pre packaged salads (Caesar particularly) along with bags of mini croutons and sachets of salad dressing – they are out there I am sure you just have to be sad enough to know where to find them!

          • You’re right they are still out there!

          • Bucket, classy.

        • Sounds good to me!

    • Ha!

    • OMG! Tang! I never got enough of it.

  12. Devils on horseback, all time favourite, I nearly wept seeing that photo.
    No -one loves them in my fam.
    Devilled eggs every Christmas for entree and will remain so until I die.
    Also…
    I had fried HALOUMI because of you for brekkie this morning

  13. Always e mail myself.. I am my own worst spam!..

    Do you think you can contact Haloumi makers and barter a belated sponsored post? I am wondering if my local will still have any left when I go an grab another packet today ๐Ÿ™‚

  14. Get yourself to Costco woman – there are all kinds of deliciousness, bacon bits included. In bulk no less.
    Cob loaf dip. Goddamn that shit is good. My sister in law makes it for all the family functions. I can’t have the recipe, otherwise I’d have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sooooo good.

  15. Cassie Webster says

    Pink Panther ice blocks!

  16. Paddlepops made from pineapple juice. The very first flavours along with chocolate. Eaten on the beach at Jabba (thanks Mrs Woog) for morning tea. Pure juice, not cordial and they cost threepence each.

  17. Firm fan of the pickled onion. Gleefully bought Jatz AND Savoy crackers last week, but I still can’t figure out what the difference is.

  18. Top taste jam fairy cakes! Cake from a packet is so wrong, but these were so right!!

    • Jacqueline says

      Oh Mel – I found some recently at Coles – not as good as the Top Taste ones of old but close enough that when I ate one I was back at my Nana’s kitchen table and the two of us were drinking tea out of her mismatched fancy china teacups saying “just one more” until the whole packet was gone. I can’t remember the brand (although possibly a girl’s name like “Mary’s Homebaked” or some such utter rubbish (seeing as how they were selling in Coles with a relatively long shelf life).

      As the eldest of 5 children I think part of the charm of the jam fairy cakes was having Nana all to myself but even so man oh man those cakes were the real deal. Add to that the fact that Nana always bought Blue Ribbon Ice Cream (not the mega sized Home brand kind we had at home) and Ice Magic (thankfully both still readily available) and I was a child who felt like they had died and gone to heaven! Thanks for reviving the memory you have made my day.

    • And madiera cake…so artificial…so good.

    • oh god they were good

  19. I had lunch with my husbands’ grandmother (92) last week and she served me little finger sandwiches with various meat pastes in them – they could probably stay in the past.

  20. Lisa Aherne says

    I send emails to myself all the time. For ages photos would not download to my iPad from my iPhone, so I just emailed them to myself and saved them. Problem solved, and has been properly solved since. I did not use bacon bits too much, but miss sprinkles for my salad. These days sprinkles are made up of chia seeds and suchlike healthy options rather than the salt-laden ones of the past. It seems that one thing disappears to be replaced by another. Not that the new item is always an improvement. Enjoy your bacon bits!

  21. Lisa Mckenzie says

    There is so many retro things we could bring back,go you Beth and get the party started!

  22. When I was a kid we used to get these incredible, fantastic, amazing puffs of deep-fried deliciousness called Bacon Bars from our local Shell service station hot box (where all the greasiest food in the world hangs out). Soooooo good. Haven’t seen them for years.

  23. Bring back asparagus rolls, yum fresh bread, butter, asparagus ๐Ÿ™‚ Mum always trotted them out when guests arrived. Mum also made tripe every so often as well – that definitely belongs in the past, never to return please.
    For goodness sake how does anyone remember everything if they don’t email themselves…..it’s a complete mystery to me!

  24. Yes to emails to self.
    Bring back crunchy iceberg lettuce rolled in a slice of devon with a toothpick through it.
    Did you ever have them?
    When I was a kid I always knew a party was happening when mum started making them! Yummo.

  25. It’s seriously time we see more tinned muscles on Jatz bikkies, cocktail onions on tooth picks and corn relish dip made from a jar of corn relish mixed with smashed Philly cheese. We need to host an ‘old-school’ dinner party Beth with all of these delights. Back to the simple things ๐Ÿ˜‰
    C x

  26. I’m going to sound like a real dick but what is a bacon bit? It’s not just cooked diced bacon is it because I still have that! Or is it that fake bacon you get in the premade salads from the grocery store?

    • No my version is the exact thing you are talking about! I just cook it and whiz them up…like a bacon sprinkle! Am sure there are dodgy, fake variations out there but I’m talking about the real deal.

  27. For me it wasn’t bacon bits, it was… something altogether more evil.
    Back in the seventies (yes, ok, showing my age…) we could get some very naughty things which were WONDERFUL and which don’t exist in Australia any more ๐Ÿ™
    I’m talking ready-to-bake cinnamon scrolls in a tube. Sometimes called crescent rolls. Yep, evil but AMAZING. Somehow, back in the 70s (presumably before the FDA or customs or whoever had as much clout) these little beauties snuck through to the backblocks of small town NSW where I lived back then and stole my heart (and possibly laid down a few layers in my arteries too, who cares?)
    I’ve searched and googled and amazoned and they’re just not available in Aus. Apparently they’re an American invention and I have no idea why we can’t get them here, but I have a little sad guilty dark place in my heart that yearns for them. The smell , the texture, the stretchiness of the uncooked dough in the vacuum sealed, twist-apart tube (which if I remember correctly didn’t even need refrigeration… perhaps that’s a clue: maybe they’re not actual food??) and the spicy, sweet lightness of the finished baked scrolls, if they made it that far. Anyone else, or did I just dream them?

  28. Iced Chocolate, you don’t see those like you used to. How about toasted cheese fingers with ham and/or pineapple with a garnish of alphalpha served up with an iced chocolate, a trip to Granny May’s for some rubbers and scratch’n’sniff stickers and you’ve got about the best day you could ever have in 1984. You could possibly have a chicken sandwich on white bread served in a basket with a doily in exchange for the toasted fingers.

    Other food fads – wedges with sour cream & sweet chilli (those suckers were everywhere for a while in the nineties), Mississippi Mud Cake, Sticky Date Pudding were all staples in the Sydney cafe scene in the 90s.

  29. Barbecue Shapes. At the beach. Rest of the day licking the red-and-green crumbs from under your fingernails (along with the beach sand). Classic.

  30. oh god, I am sure we have bacon bits here, there are SO many pork products in Germany that I stand in awe. I don’t even like pork. The bacon is a bit crap though. You can even buy big wedges of pig fat and cold meat shaped like a teddy bear.

    I would like to see vol au vonts will creamed corn (or even a creamed corn jaffle) bought back.

  31. /Users/zoeandben/Desktop/IMG_1095.JPG
    Look what I found in the local Coles today. Keep a bottle in the pantry for emergencies.

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  1. […] an avocado with vinaigrette and lashings of salt and pepper. And you know what I added in as well? Bacon bits of course! Because I made them (of course I made them). And it was […]

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