C (3:09)

It's not a breakfast food, and it goes beautifully with cocktails.

B (3:14)

Now, a lot of people might be familiar with candied bacon. You might even know it by the name pig candy or hog candy. But this wasn't any candied bacon recipe. This is a recipe with a unique story and a legacy in Washington D.C. and as it turned out, it was only something that an elite group of people in D.C. would know about. The reason why Carol knew about the bacon was that she had written professionally about parties and society for. For years. The kind of events where rich and powerful people would get together, rub elbows, drink champagne, try to look very important. At the time that I worked with her and she told me about bacon, she was the author of this regular column on Washington for a site called New York Social Diary, which I approached.

C (4:03)

Like it was the police beat. And I got to go to all these parties. I mean, everybody wanted me at their parties. Cause they wanted to be in New York Social Diary.

B (4:13)

So it was at one of these kinds of parties in Washington that Carol was actually attending as a friend, by the way, and not as a reporter, where she first learned about bacon. This was in the late 1990s.

C (4:24)

I had my own epiphany with bacon too. It was not like I was to the bacon born, you know, it was like I had very dear friends and they'd have great parties.

B (4:38)

Carol's friends were of the bacon born, as she put it. They came from this wealthy and powerful family in Washington D.C. called the Bruces.

C (4:47)

So I went to this party around the corner not knowing what to expect. And as I'm standing there with all kinds of people coming and going and everybody very glamorous, I see one of the staff go by with a tray with these little squares, you know, and a woman across the way goes, oh, you're serving the bacon. This is so great. And I'm like, she. She's serving the bacon. What's with the bacon? So I start following the bacon through the party, and I grab one and it's just insanely delicious. It's bacon and it's savory, but it's a little bit sweet and it's crunchy, but it's not too sweet. It doesn't taste like candy. It tastes more savory, and it's got this incredible texture. So I keep following this server through the party and getting another piece of bacon.

B (5:37)

Finally, Carol found her friend and she.

C (5:39)

Asked, what's with the bacon? And she said, well, that's Vangie's bacon. She would always serve this bacon. And so we have the same person who made the bacon for her make the bacon for us.

B (5:50)

The bacon recipe being served at the party belonged to the mother of the guy who was throwing the party. Her name was Evangeline Bruce, or Vanjie for short.

C (5:59)

Vangie's Bacon.

B (6:05)

Vangie's Bacon was Once legendary in D.C. in her day, Vangie Bruce and her husband, David Ke Bruce, were among the most influential and powerful people in Washington. David was an ambassador who served all over the world. He was a very prominent diplomat. The Bruce has belonged to this Camelot era of Washington, just after World War II, when the most powerful people in the country, Democrats and Republicans, people who did not necessarily agree with each other, were, would sit down together at dinner and sometimes quite literally, were deciding U.S. foreign policy.

D (6:40)

Well, it was a collection of journalists, publishers, and spies and diplomats who lived in a small area, basically an enclave of Washington, D.C. called Georgetown.

B (6:52)

That's Greg Herkin, who is an American historian and author of a book called the Georgetown Set, which focuses on people like Evangeline Bruce.

D (7:00)

They got together very often on Sunday nights in what was called the Sunday Night Supper, and discussed the current events in American foreign policy. And oftentimes, because they were journalists and publishers and spies and diplomats, had a disproportionate influence upon American foreign policy.

B (7:20)

The heyday of this group of people, this Georgetown Set, was really in the 1950s and the 60s, but their influence and the parties they threw rolled on into the 70s and the 80s as well. The Georgetown set included some of the most notable people of the era. You had people like the Grahams, who had once owned the Washington Post, families whose members were associated with setting up the CIA. People like the Wisners and the Dulles. You had the Alsop's. Joe Alsop, a hugely influential journalist, threw some of the most famous Sunday suppers that Greg Herkin was talking about. The Kennedys were a fixture in this mix. And of course, you also had the Bruces. These people threw parties like no one throws parties anymore. And when Vangie Bruce threw a party, she served bacon. It was her thing. It was like a kind of marker. And if you were eating Vangie's bacon, you were somebody you belonged so this was all the backdrop for that famous bacon that I asked my friend Carol about. She remembered trying it at her friend's party and following the tray around all night, eating more of it. Now, Vangie Bruce had died in the mid-1990s, and her husband had died years before that. So I asked Carol to try calling her friend to get the recipe.

C (8:38)

And she said, well, that was made by Odette Pereira, who worked for Vangie, and she was her cook.

B (8:46)

Odette Pereira, the potential true source of the bacon recipe.

C (8:55)

And I said, well, do you know how to reach her? And she said, let me see if I have a phone number. I called it. I got Odette, and she was this very lively person and knew exactly what I was talking about and told me she was still making the bacon. I said, what's the secret?

B (9:12)

Odette refused to tell her she would not give Carol the recipe. Evangeline Bruce had made Odette swear that she would never reveal it. And almost 20 years after Vangie had died, Odette was keeping her voice vow of silence.

C (9:27)

But she said she'd make it for me. And she made me bacon and brought it to the house. And I think you even ordered some from her, too.

B (9:36)

Well, you got some for me, I.

C (9:37)

Got some for you. Okay.

B (9:42)

So Carol brings over this bacon to my house in this, like, tin, and I open it up, and it's these shards of, like, shellacked meat. Like, you can tell it's bacon, and it is coated in this shiny candy exterior. And when I bite into this, it is like Dorothy seeing everything in color. I mean, it is, like, fatty and savory, and it's a little bit chewy, but it has this amazing crunchy exterior. It is. It's the perfect balance between salty and sweet and savory. You eat one piece of this, and you just want to eat another, and then you want to eat another. Like, you can absolutely see why Carol is just following this tray around through the party all night. This is now 10 years ago that I first tasted Vanjie's bacon. I have not stopped thinking about it now all this time, mind you, I am covering the Donald Trump administration. I'm, like, writing about the CIA. I have a job, and I would put the bacon story down for a while, and I would try to come back to it, and then, like, life in the world would just sort of get in the way. I mean, I have cracked a lot of stories. I have still not been able to figure out how to replicate this candied bacon recipe. I mean, I go online, I would Google the words candied bacon. And there are a ton of recipes and tutorials on how to make candied bacon. And I would try all of them. Nothing tasted like Vanjie's bacon that I had tried all those years ago. And I know how to cook like I know what I'm doing. I could not nail this. And it suddenly felt like everywhere I went, candied bacon was just on a menu. I was being haunted by bacon, and none of it was as good as Vanjie's bacon. Now, over the years, I would bring this up with people in the city who had been to her parties, and they remembered this bacon. There is actually a Vanity Fair article that mentions this. It's a profile of Evangeline Bruce written in the 1990s, and it opens up with this sweeping scene of all the guests at her house for this brunch on a Sunday. And there's a congressman and there's a network TV anchor over here. And the article describes these freshly shucked oysters being set out on a white linen tablecloth and, like, trays of miniature steak tartare floating around the party. And then there's a quote that they're also serving the famous Bruce bacon. And it says in parentheses, unfailingly crisp, sweet and gray, greaseless, which it is. So that is Vanjie's bacon. Now, sometimes when you're reporting a difficult story, if someone isn't ready to give you some information, you give them some time. Ten years seemed like long enough to try again. What I'm looking at is, who can tell us how to make Vangie Bruce's bacon? Oh, dad, she's the key.

C (12:31)

She's the key.

B (12:34)

Think she'll ever give us the recipe?

C (12:35)

I don't know. I mean, I suppose the argument to be made is it deserves to be known.

B (12:43)

Now, let me just say I am very accustomed to making difficult phone calls, trying to get information out of people who are paid to keep secrets. But when I sat down in the audio booth with Post producer Ted Muldoon to call Odette, I was really stressed. Is it. Deep breath. We do it. Okay. You're so nervous. I am nervous. You do national security coverage. I know, but this is like. I mean, what if she's going to be like, piss off, you weirdo. Why are you calling me? I know. I don't want to buy a subscription to the Washington Post. All right, let's see what happens. All right. Okay. Hello. Hi, My name is Shane Harris. I'm a reporter with the Washington Post. I'm Trying to reach Odette Pereira.

E (13:41)

She's not here.

B (13:43)

Oh, okay.

E (13:44)

Later.

B (13:44)

Okay. Could I leave a message for her?

E (13:47)

Yeah. What do you need?

B (13:48)

So I'm working on a story about someone who I think that she used to work for named Evangeline Bruce. Yes, and I was hoping to talk with her about that. I'm working on a podcast, and believe it or not, it's actually about a special recipe that Evangeline Bruce used to serve at parties that I think Ms. Pereira used to cook.

E (14:10)

Listen, can you hold just for a minute? It's myself. So that is myself. I don't know who it's called, but I can go back, talk to you, because I'm in another phone for something. Okay, can you just hold it for a minute?

B (14:22)

Yeah, hold on. Odette is myself, if that wasn't clear. This is Odette on the phone. Even though she initially disguised her identity. Not the first source to do that, in my experience. So Odette puts me on a brief hold because she was on the other line with somebody else.

E (14:40)

Okay, you hold it. Thank you.

B (14:42)

Yeah.

E (14:42)

Oh, yeah. Yes. I cook for 35 years for Evangeline Bruce.

B (14:48)

Oh, my God. So I've been looking to talk to you for a long time, actually. I have been working on a story about, believe it or not, all things candied bacon. Evangeline Bruce. And the candied bacon.

E (15:01)

Bacon.

B (15:02)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

E (15:04)

The fame bacon.

B (15:05)

So I explained a bit about how I learned about the bacon, and then Odette explained a bit about how she first started cooking for Evangeline Bruce.

E (15:12)

I learned cook when I came to the states in 72.

B (15:17)

Where did you come from?

E (15:19)

I came from Portugal.

B (15:21)

Odette had lost her parents when she was quite young, and she followed her sister to the States. When she first got here from Portugal, her sister got Odette a job at the Italian embassy as a cook, even though Odette didn't know how to cook at the time. So she started learning on the job by experimenting with different recipes.

E (15:41)

I'm very curious, and I like to start to do something new all the time, and they like this.

B (15:47)

How did you first start working for Evangeline Bruce?

E (15:49)

Well, Mrs. Bruce, this is in the 70. Around 75.

B (15:55)

Odette became Evangeline's personal cook, which, of course, included cooking for her dinner parties full of rich and powerful people.

E (16:01)

Always all the states, like Vice President, Mrs. Reagan, all the people who work with the presidents.

B (16:13)

Wow. So, like, people from the White House and, like, really powerful political.

E (16:17)

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Sometimes have the. The security comes for. See the cooking and stay in the kitchen looking what I cook.

B (16:27)

So, like, the Secret Service would come watch you cook?

E (16:29)

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

B (16:34)

Odette especially loved whenever the first Lady, Nancy Reagan, would come over. She, of course, was the wife of then Republican President Ronald Reagan. And after the meal, Nancy would often come back and visit with Odette.

E (16:45)

She's all the time she comes, she say, come to say thank you. One time she's there and she take. Let me take her picture with my kids.

B (16:54)

Odette still remembers the first time that Vangie asked her to try to make the candied bacon.

E (17:00)

She find out in London in some place. I think it's in Queen's house. I think.

B (17:06)

In the Queen's house, you say?

E (17:08)

I think it's in the Queen's house.

B (17:09)

Like, as in Buckingham Palace?

E (17:11)

Yeah. Oh, yes.

B (17:12)

That's where she said she remembered eating it.

E (17:14)

Yes, I think she said in the palace, I think. But you don't know how they do it.

B (17:21)

Bacon literally fit for a queen. But Evangeline didn't know how to make it. So one day, Odette says Vanjie comes to her and asks her to replicate this allegedly royal bacon recipe.

E (17:33)

And she just tell me, odette, I don't know. I know it's bacon and sugar. You have to find out. And she tell me, you have to try. I in for a week, every day, for tracing the right bacon, what she.

B (17:48)

Eats in London for a week. Odette made batch after batch of bacon, and Vangie would come in and she'd try it and she'd say, no, this isn't quite right yet.

E (17:59)

You have to try again more. So. And I be tried one day, said, oh, yes, this is exactly what I ate it and said that you keep the secret.

B (18:10)

Now, this is important. According to Odette, there is a reason to keep this recipe secret. Everyone loved it and everyone wanted it. People would come over to the house, they would expect it, they come to the brunches. She told me that Princess Margaret, as in the Queen's sister, actually came and ate the bacon. And, like, I don't know if this bacon really came from Buckingham palace, but, like, somebody who's been there quite a lot ate this bacon and loved it. So. So you probably wouldn't tell me the recipe, would you?

E (18:37)

No, I can tell you. It's bacon and sugar.

B (18:43)

That's it?

E (18:44)

Yeah, you can try it.

B (18:46)

Do you still make it on request?

E (18:49)

Oh, yeah.

B (18:50)

Like, could you make me some?

E (18:53)

Yeah, if I have time. If I don't know. What do you need? Maybe for the winter?

B (18:58)

Maybe for the winter or something.

E (19:00)

Yeah, yeah, I can make it in the winter. You can call me late in the winter and I'm sure I can do it.

B (19:13)

Okay, so I was not able to get the bacon recipe out of Odette either, but I did come away from our call with two promising leads. 1. Odette was willing to make the bacon for me again. This would be the first time I've tasted it in 10 years. Maybe with a sample I could do what she had originally done and I don't know, try to reverse engineer it. 2. According to Odette, I might have a lead on the original recipe. It might belong to Queen Elizabeth, which would be a very exciting development, right? My instinct would be correct. This bacon recipe went straight to the top. After the break, my 10 year quest for bacon continues. Use.

F (19:58)

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B (22:18)

All right, so Odette is not giving up the recipe, but I'm not giving up on her. So I'm going to give her some more time to see if she might be ready to talk later. And in the meantime, I started looking into Evangeline Bruce some more to try and figure out how she might have ended up eating bacon in Buckingham palace in the first place. Now I have reached out to Buckingham palace for for a comment on whether or not bacon has ever been on the Royal family's menu and whether Evangeline Bruce might have tasted it there. I am, shockingly, still waiting for a reply. Evangeline Bruce did move around in some very rarefied circles throughout her life, so it's possible she was the daughter of an American diplomat. She grew up all over the world, moving between Italy, Sweden, France, Holland, Great Britain, China, Switzerland. Later on in her life, she married David KE Bruce.

D (23:07)

I understand they met when they were both working for the OSS Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA during the war.

G (23:15)

I was born in Baltimore, Maryland on February 12, 1898.

B (23:20)

This is David Ke Bruce. He died in 1977 and this is from an oral history that he gave just a few years before. It's part of President Truman's archive at various times.

G (23:31)

I was in the United States army during the First World War from 1917 to 1920. During the Second World War, from 1942 until 1945.

B (23:42)

Bruce became a high ranking official during World War II in the office of Strategic Services, which as Greg Herkin mentioned, was the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. You know, the agency that I cover for a living.

G (23:54)

I was eventually director of the European center of Operations of the Office of Strategic Services.

B (24:00)

At the height of World War II, David was running operations in the European theater for the OSS So you can think of him as, like, acting as an American spymaster fighting the Nazis. The OSS was supporting resistance efforts behind enemy lines in occupied France. They were sending people in via parachute to set up roving bands of intelligence operators to try and foil Nazi plans. And David was Evangeline's boss. While they were both working at the London office of the oss. This is how their love story began. According to Evangeline's 1995 obituary in the New York Times, one day her boss began questioning her about the languages that she spoke. I suppose you speak Italian? He said. She said, yes. German? She nodded. French again, yes. While you certainly don't speak Japanese and Chinese. He said, well, she said, it happens that I do, sir, because my father was stationed in both countries. With that, David KE Bruce invited her to lunch. So Evangeline became David's assistant. And in that job, she did some really interesting things, working with spies behind the lines in Europe. For instance, she was called upon to forge passports and papers for these spies who would often move around on bicycles. And she had to develop these elaborate backstories in case they were ever stopped by the Nazis. And someone wanted to know, why are you carrying a bicycle registered in one place when you're riding to another? She once told a Washington Post staff writer that it all seemed very romantic at the time. Now, after the war, David became one of the most important diplomats of the 20th century. He was deeply involved in the Marshall Plan, which helped to rebuild Europe. He held all sorts of important posts.

D (25:58)

David Bruce would become a roving ambassador to several countries, including in London. He was in Paris, he was at.

G (26:04)

Bond, American Ambassador to France, Under Secretary of State, Special United States Observer, United States Ambassador to the Federal Republican, United States Ambassador, the Great Brittany for the United States delegation to the parish.

B (26:15)

And everywhere David went, so did Evangeline.

D (26:17)

Evangeline traveled with him and was at these embassies, not as a hostess. She hated the term hostess, by the way, but as someone who could aid his career.

B (26:29)

She told vanity fair in 1995 about her husband and his work. Quote, I know it's a tired old cliche, but we were partners in every sense of the word. Diplomats don't just sit in a room and have talks. They get people together in embassies and throw parties. For the work of diplomacy to happen, there has to be this convivial setting, this social place where everyone comes together. So these parties were incredibly important. Evangeline was the one responsible for creating that scene. It was her responsibility, and it was in her capacity as the wife of the American ambassador, socialite and diplomatic entertainer that Evangeline would have allegedly have the opportunity to try bacon at Buckingham Palace. The Bruces and people like them are the establishment. It's at dinner parties and cocktail parties in their home and in others like them where powerful people who make decisions about the fate of the nation get together and drink and eat.

H (27:34)

That was one of the ways that people communicated the most, was at the parties.

B (27:40)

That's the journalist and author Sally Quinn. She's the widow of Ben Bradley, the former executive editor of the Post, who I mentioned at the very beginning of this episode. Sally was also well known for throwing parties, and she was really part of the next generation after that original Georgetown set. She started throwing parties in the 70s and then into the 80s and 90s, and she's still very much a fixture on the scene. Throw bringing people together for dinner at her home in Georgetown.

H (28:07)

Even though they're meant to be fun, they were always working parties. I'm talking about the embassy crowd. I'm talking about journalists, White House people, people on the Hill. You know, they needed a way to exchange information and to meet each other. You know, and you sit next to somebody that you didn't know and you get up from the table and know perfectly well that I, as a reporter, for instance, sitting next to somebody in the administration, could call them the next day and get them on the phone and vice versa.

B (28:39)

Because you'd spent time together.

I (28:40)

Yes.

H (28:41)

Establish a relationship. And it was non denominational. I mean, Republicans, Democrats were all together all the time. And I had a lot of Republican friends and really close friends.

J (28:54)

Dinner parties really were the nexus of this informal power. Washington.

B (29:02)

That's Roxane Roberts. It was her column about Ben Bradlee's memorial party that turned me on to bacon. Roxane has been covering Washington's social and political and philanthropic power brokers for the post since 1988, which means she has been to a lot of these kinds of parties.

J (29:18)

The reason that my beat was so interesting to me is that everybody else was writing about what happened from 9 to 5, and I was writing about what happened from 5 to 9 or 10 or 11, where people who came together, many with different ideologies, without any of the kind of bitchiness and cruelty that exists now, would sit down and they would argue and they would drink. And as people got to know each other as human beings, rather than a policy position, they were in a better place to then trade votes, negotiate during the day. The fact of the matter is, is that it is impossible even for a president to do anything alone in this town. And everybody needed other people, whether it was advice or friends of friends. You needed other people to be able to accomplish something big.

B (30:19)

If you look at the big policy decisions that were being made in Washington of yesterday, particularly following the end of World War II, this town really functioned and found consensus in a way that seems unthinkable today.

D (30:32)

It'd be kind of remarkable that in the space of a year, the Marshall Plan was voted and accepted, the Truman Doctrine was voted and accepted, the whole containment strategy toward the Soviet Union was established. Things got done pretty well and pretty rapidly.

B (30:50)

All the things that Greg Hurkin mentions here, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, these were the defining actions that created the post war democratic world order. This is the system of agreements and alliances like NATO that makes the west, and chiefly the United States, the world's leader for the next 80 years. And these decisions that are going to determine the fate of the US Will world order for the next century are being hashed out around a dinner table in Georgetown.

D (31:19)

One time, Susan Mary Alsop said that to a gathering. What are we going to do about the Italian election? This is in 1947.

B (31:28)

What are we going to do?

D (31:30)

Yeah, what are we going to do? Because we are the ones who should advise on this. Allen Dulles was always invited to these.

B (31:36)

Parties, Allen Dulles, again, Director of the.

D (31:39)

CIA, with the hope that Alan would spill some secrets. And. And Alan Dulles knew that very well. So he would launch off on a big story and go on for some time until he got to the interesting part, you know, where the secret was. And then he'd look at his watch and say, oh, look at the time. You know, we have to leave.

B (32:05)

So it was in this context where women like Evangeline Bruce would need to plan the menu. And sometimes their recipes were treated like state secrets.

C (32:15)

They would keep their own recipes.

B (32:17)

That's Carol Joint again, my trusted guide through social Washington.

C (32:21)

Other hostesses would covet, you know, so and so's beef stew or so and so's chicken this or so and so's shrimp that, or how did you get that salad dressing. You know, there was a certain elitism in who your chef was, who your cook was, and the secrets that they kept of your special recipes.

B (32:45)

So Washington hosts often served a trademark dish or something that they were known for. And for Evangeline Bruce, it was the secret candied bacon recipe that she'd asked Odette to spend that week perfecting. According to Odette and others, that I Tracked down. Vanjie's recipe was the first one to make candied bacon trendy in Washington. It became widely imitated and remained popular well into the 80s and the 90s. I've met lots of people who have their own bacon recipe and it's bipartisan. Dick Cheney serves a bacon that's actually made with chili pepper in it.

J (33:17)

The idea of people from across the aisle gathering with certain non political but very powerful people, influential people, that's changed. There's a reason the Georgetown dinner party has sort of been elevated to a unique and important thing, because it doesn't happen in the same way.

B (33:38)

Is Washington better off now not having people like Evangeline Bruce convening in that way? Is it more egalitarian? Is it more democratic? Or have we lost something, an important function that those parties served?

J (33:51)

I am going to say that in column A, you have a bunch of wealthy white people, for the most part attempting to solve the problems of the world from a very elite perch. And you can find quite easily all the things wrong with that. On the other hand, you have a city full of people who are making both national and international policy that have decided to declare war on each other. They have no interest in working together. They see that as a sign of weakness. They have no interest in getting to know each other. There is virtually no respect for each other as human beings or fellow patriots. There's a lot of performance and theater and not much governing. So I would say, and I'm going to sound old, but at least these dinner parties, as flawed as they were, had a goal. And the goal was to make the country better. And I'm not sure that throwing a tantrum on the floor of the House in our new version of egalitarian politics is better.

B (35:26)

I think today you have to wonder if the best version of that diplomacy and its promise is actually lost. And you know, I've had to wonder by this point if I'm ever going to be able to reverse engineer this bacon. After trying for so long, so hard and learning so much about this era, I had a new idea that instead of asking Odette to just make a batch for me, I would invite her over to the Post as some of us attempted to recreate it together. Hi, Marina. Odette. Hi, I'm Shane.

E (35:55)

Very nice to meet you.

B (35:56)

Hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too.

E (35:59)

I'm Odette.

B (36:00)

Come on inside.

E (36:01)

I've never been in Washington Post.

B (36:03)

I met Odette and her daughter Marina Cucco outside the Post and we went up to the food Lab. That's where we met our post food writer, Aaron Hutcherson. He was with us. I figured, hey, if Odette wasn't willing to reveal the recipe outright, you know, maybe she'd give us some tips. A little, you know, wink and a nudge here and there. So. All right, so we have bacon, and we have brown sugar. You can put your purse down, make yourself comfortable if you want.

E (36:27)

Okay. You're just watching?

B (36:28)

Yeah.

H (36:31)

No pressure.

B (36:31)

No pressure. Then what's. So Aaron starts cooking, and we start talking to Odette. Aaron's got a pack of bacon, a jar of dark brown sugar, an aluminum sheet pan, and then a baking rack in the pan to elevate the bacon over it. Odette starts reminiscing again about Evangeline eating candied bacon in London. But as she's telling the story, she's keeping an eye on Aaron as he starts to put the bacon on a rack to put it in the oven.

E (36:59)

You not do a thing the right.

B (37:03)

You don't use.

E (37:04)

You need to put sugar first.

B (37:05)

Sugar first. Okay.

E (37:07)

Yes.

B (37:08)

It was clear that Odette was not just going to stand by while bacon was being made. You don't need the rack.

E (37:13)

No.

B (37:14)

Okay.

E (37:14)

No.

B (37:15)

Odette makes Aaron throw the rack off to the side. So now do you put the brown sugar on the tray?

E (37:20)

Yes.

B (37:21)

So put the sugar all over the.

E (37:22)

All over the tray, all over the place? Yes. With your hands? Yes. Yes. You put it all over there.

B (37:28)

Before putting the bacon down, Odette has Erin cover the bottom of the sheet pan with brown sugar.

E (37:34)

Now? Yes. Now you put the bacon. There you go. There's a lot of sugar again in the top.

B (37:42)

So this is like a layer of brown sugar, a layer of bacon and more sugar on top of the bacon.

E (37:47)

Yes. Yes. Wow.

B (37:49)

So it's going to be like cooking in a sandwich of brown sugar almost.

E (37:52)

Yes, yes. Like a sandwich. Yes.

B (37:55)

Oh, wow.

E (37:55)

And oven, they can be higher. They can be around 300, depend on the ovens. You know, the gas I took with 300.

B (38:06)

So again, if you didn't catch this, there's a layer of dark brown sugar on the bottom, then a layer of bacon, and then more brown sugar on top of the bacon.

E (38:15)

More and more. And you have to down. Yes.

B (38:19)

So you're actually packing sugar around the bacon and pressing it down with your hands. Okay. See? Oh, did. I never would have imagined doing it this way.

E (38:29)

Well, so this is your. You never, ever give the recipe till I lie. Never allowed to give out the recipe.

B (38:36)

As long as she was alive.

E (38:38)

Now go to the Oven. You have the oven on?

B (38:41)

Yes.

E (38:41)

Okay. Around 300? Yes.

B (38:44)

Okay, so that's pretty. That's like a low and slow kind of thing.

E (38:47)

Slow, okay. Because they have to melt the, the sugar until they make the caramel.

B (38:53)

I see.

E (38:53)

Sometimes more than one hour.

B (38:56)

So you have to keep an eye on it.

E (38:57)

Yes, you have to keep eye on. And it's more than one hour. It depends how the they deal with. And soon they start to bulbing.

B (39:06)

Soon the sugar starts bubbling is what Odette says here. But it's becoming clear that this is really a feel thing for her. It also depends on the oven, since not all ovens heat the same way. In our recipe, it took about an hour cooking the bacon at 300 degrees. You're watching and waiting for the sugar to bubble and caramelize on that bacon. And Odette is watching for two particular the color of the bacon and the smell. She's really using her nose here to know when it's ready.

E (39:36)

It smells, you see it. They start to melt. Because you have. Well, I'm not supposed to tell you everything, but you have to turn over. You have to turn the bake over when they melt in the top, when they run. You have to use your nose. Yes. Most people use a toothpick or something.

B (39:56)

To see if it's ready.

E (39:57)

No, you have to just look and smell it.

B (39:59)

Okay, so this is the important. If I were to point out one secret to Odette's recipe, this would be the big one. We've probably been cooking the bacon at this point for about 35 minutes. And Odette tells us to turn it over. And at this point the sugar has entirely melted and it is mixed with the fat that has rendered off of the bacon. So everything has become this delicious smelling brown syrup on the bottom, bottom of the tray. Wow. This is absolutely like. It's like a caramel.

E (40:30)

You have to put this sugar back on there. Yes.

B (40:35)

Oh, I see. So you got to like really get it.

E (40:37)

Exactly. You have to do this.

B (40:39)

Aaron is picking up each strip of bacon with a pair of tongs and dredging it through the caramelized syrup as he flips it over. He then even used tongs to put some more syrup on top of the bacon, kind of ladling it over. The point here is to create consecutive layers of caramelized sugar. You need to repeat this flipping of the bacon, this process a handful of times.

E (41:01)

And I'm sure after you have to do another time and just keep doing it until it's the right. Yeah.

B (41:07)

So it is basically cooking in liquefied caramel. Right. Now, watching this process, I can see why it took Odette a week making batch after batch of bacon to perfect this technique. It is not obvious. So when Mrs. Bruce finally you got it finally the way that she liked it. How did you remember?

E (41:28)

Oh, I remember. You know, think after five days, every day. Oh, my God. I just.

B (41:37)

How could you forget?

E (41:37)

I can't sit bacon anymore. I come in the kitchen, say bacon again.

B (41:42)

We repeated the bacon flipping process another couple of times over the next 25 minutes until it had exactly the color that Odette was looking for. This is like looking like that deep, deep, dark color that you really want.

E (41:54)

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

B (41:55)

Almost burned.

E (41:56)

That's it. This is the bacon. Look like it exactly where they are.

B (42:00)

So wait a few minutes for it to cool down.

E (42:02)

Yes.

B (42:03)

And then we will see the moment of truth.

E (42:05)

Mrs. Bruce, I'm sorry, if you somewhere look to me. Sorry.

B (42:10)

What?

E (42:10)

I can come and show these people how the bacon is supposed to go.

B (42:16)

Aaron took the bacon off of the pan sheet and put it on aluminum foil. Now, this part can be tricky because of the caramelized sugar. The bacon sticks to anything that you put it on. So definitely don't put it on parchment paper because the parchment will rip off in, like, little bits on the bacon. Odette likes to put the bacon directly on her cold granite counter. Since then it snaps off better after it's cooled. But if you're careful, you can put the bacon on foil afterwards. There is one last crucial test to make sure the bacon is, in fact, done. The bacon strip needs to stand up straight when you hold it vertically.

E (42:53)

Let me see it. Oh, yes.

B (42:58)

Is that right?

E (43:00)

See it stands up.

B (43:05)

That's it.

E (43:05)

That's it. That's it.

B (43:08)

Not all of the strips of bacon cooked evenly. The strips that were on the edges of the pan cooked faster. And then some of the other strips were still floppy and bent over during that test. So we just put those back in the oven for another round of caramel shellacking until they looked right. Should we try them?

E (43:23)

Yeah, you can try it.

B (43:25)

Okay. It had been 10 years since I ate this bacon, and I had promised so many people who have worked so long on this podcast that it was going to be amazing. I gotta say, I was a little skeptical myself, and I know Ted was skeptical just a little bit. This was the moment of truth. Oh, my God. That flavor.

E (43:44)

Yeah.

D (43:45)

Oh, that.

B (43:46)

This is what I remember from the first time I tried the bacon.

E (43:48)

Did you? Yeah. Yeah. This is why.

B (43:53)

Oh, my God.

E (43:54)

And it's not easy. Somebody do it.

B (43:56)

This is clearly not easy. Yeah, I don't know how you would convey this. Write this recipe down. Well, I have to ask you something, too, because everybody always talks about Mrs. Bruce and they always say, like, Evangeline Bruce's bacon or the Bruce bacon. I think, though, it's really Odette's bacon because you're the one who made it. I mean, this famous thing that is in books and it's in magazines, magazine articles and people associate with her, but you made it. It's really the debts bacon.

E (44:28)

Yeah.

B (44:28)

Well, now everyone's gonna know it's Odets bacon.

E (44:38)

My name is Odette PR. I came from Portugal 50 years ago. When I came, no morning, no English, no nothing with the suitcase, my husband and my daughter in my arms. And now I'm so proud being America because I have eight grandchildren, three children, where they make me so proud. I learned so many things to myself. Not because they teach me, because I try to do it and I do it.

B (45:17)

I'm making this recipe for Thanksgiving and I plan to serve it at dinner parties at my house, too. And when I do, I will tell people this is Odette's bacon and there's a great story about it.

A (45:42)

That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. One more thing. We have an excellent Black Friday deal going on right now. For a limited time, you can access the Washington Post for just 99 cents. That's unlimited access to all of the posts for only 99 cents every four weeks. That is a great deal for the first year. And after that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. You can cancel anytime, but don't wait. This Black Friday seasonal offer won't be here for long. Go to washingtonpost.com subscribe and grab this deal before it's gone. That's washingtonpost.com subscribe this story was reported by Shane Harris and produced by Ted Muldoon. It was edited by Maggie Penman and Renita Jablonski. Special thanks to Ariel Plotnick and Ariella Markowitz. Tape of David KE Bruce is courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. I'm Colby Ekowitz. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

I (46:54)

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