FOOD blogger Niamh Shields hopes people will want to pig out on her unusual recipes.
How does bacon jam sound? Well what about bacon éclairs or bacon ice cream? And a bacon cocktail to wash it all down?
If your answer to any or all of the above questions was “unpalatable”, you are probably not alone. But critically acclaimed London-based food blogger and author Niamh Shields is out to convert the sceptics.
“Bacon jam does sound unpalatable, it really does,” the Waterford woman told The Irish Post. “But when I brought it to a group of friends as a test years ago, they said ‘no way’ too before they tasted it. And then it was gone in seconds. They were eating it off the spoon.”
Ms Shields’ secret recipe for the peculiar jam is set to be joined by 79 others, all incorporating bacon in some unlikely way, in a new cookbook planned by the writer.
But she needs to raise £20,000 to finance the project and has turned to innovative crowdfunding website Kickstarter to try and reach her target.
The idea, pioneered by three young Americans, is that creative people offer unique gifts to ‘backers’ in exchange for a small portion of the funding they need to make their project a reality.
Ms Shields is offering unique recipes for a £3 investment, a limited edition copy of the cookbook itself for £17 and a “bacon masterclass” for £540.
“The £20,000 I am asking for just covers basic design, basic photography and editorial,” Ms Shields said. “And anything I get after that, if I get anything after that, will enhance the book. I want it to be a bacon wonderland.”
In just over a week since its announcement, the project has received almost £6,000 of funding from over 200 backers.
Explaining that she always wanted to do something “a bit different and a bit fun,” but had feared straying from the conventional route to book-making through well-connected publishers, Ms Shields added: “The fact is that right now in Britain, if you do not have a TV show, it is very hard to get your book in a bookshop anyway.
“And you certainly won’t get it up front and in the door because TV sells and they are interested in that. So I wanted to do it in a different way. Just because I am not on the television does not mean I cannot produce a good book.”
For more information on Project Bacon, visit Ms Shields’ blog, www.eatlikeagirl.com.
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