From the Historic American Cookbook Project at Michigan State University Libraries, here’s an excerpt from Aunt Babette’s Cook Book: Foreign and domestic receipts for the household (published c. 1889) instructing the reader how to fashion a bacon bandage as a treatment for sore throat:
Cut the bacon in strips one quarter of an inch in thickness and two or three inches in width and long enough to pass entirely around the throat. Remove the bacon rind and any lean meat there may be in it to prevent blistering of the throat or neck. Sew the bacon to a strip of flannel so as to hold it into position and prevent its slipping and then apply the bacon to the throat and neck. Pin it around the neck, so that it will not be uncomfortably tight. The throat and neck should be completely swathed with the bacon. If after an application of eight hours the patient is not better apply a new bandage in the same manner.
I particularly like “the throat and neck should be completely swathed with bacon.” This seems more like a sound brunch-time policy rather than a health concern, though.
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SO many questions arise! Like, just what is this meant to achieve? Why does lean meat discourage this result? Just how does this smell after 12 hours wrapped around a neck that is presumably at least 98.6•?. And on and on. It is making me so not hungry for bacon. And now my neck itches.
“Sew the bacon” – snort!
My gods. It’s the solution to all my ailments! Sweet swine salvation!