some bicycles are improved by fish

I have a coworker named Jim who has long maintained that bacon is the perfect food. He says it goes with anything else you might eat. If it doesn't improve it, he says, at least it's still wonderful. For example, if he was eating a bowl of ice cream and someone handed him a strip of bacon, he'd gladly alternate spoonfuls of one with bites of the other.


He has tried the chocolate/bacon mashup. At a fancy hotel brunch buffet with a chocolate waterfall on one side of the room, and an omelette bar at the other. He said it was fine.


Back in January, I saw a recipe for bacon ice cream on a blog. I saved it for future use.


On Monday, in honor of Jim's birthday, I brought in my ice cream maker, a quart of custard, crushed pecans and 12 oz of crumbled bacon that I had prepared the night before. Over lunch, I enlisted the help of my tablemates who normally sit together in the employee lounge to help agitate the ball containing rock salt/ice and custard/bacon. It took about 20 minutes, and then I started serving up bacon ice cream.


Jim got first taste. He liked it.

Mike went second, he pronounced it okay.

I went third. I really liked it. A lot.

Andrew declined to taste it. With disgust. Let's just say that I've never seen him order a salad, so it wasn't fear of saturated fats that was inhibiting him. As his boss, I considered ordering him to taste it, but decided instead to be gentle.


Some people around the lunch room - about 50% - were willing to have a spoonful. The rest made a wrinkly face of disgust.


Comments received (beyond the "whatever made you want to create this abomination?" variety):


"Eewww."
"It tastes...so wrong."
"I thought you were Jewish."
"That's definitely bacon."


Jim had seconds. I offered him a nicely wrapped pint to take home, but he didn't think it would survive the commute.


I sent an all-staff e-mail inviting anyone who wanted to try bacon ice cream to come to the employee lounge. I admit to being a little disappointed in the lack of adventure my coworkers displayed. I ended up freezing the two remaining pints solid and taking them home with me.


Rachel made the "Eeeww" face. The kids said they liked it, but left most of it. I offered tastes to my neighbors. They made the "Eewww" face.

I realize this isn't doing a good job of selling what I thought was a delicious recipe, but you probably already know in your heart if you're the kind of person who is going to enjoy bacon ice cream.