Bacon

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from Rick Tramonto's book Fantastico!

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from Anne Willan's book The Country Cooking of France. La Truffade If you can't afford truffles, you indulge in Truffade, say the inhabitants of the Auvergne, notoriously among the coldest and most rugged areas of France. Often served with sausages, Truffade is a potato cake flavored with bacon and laden with cheese, a buttress against the worst weather. Nippy Cantal is the local hard cheese, and Gruyère may be substituted.

A diced confetti-style hash is a great way to use leftover meat and vegetables.

Sautéing the squid in the bacon fat adds tons of flavor to the seafood itself. Fried calamari with marinara sauce will be but a distant memory once you try this.

These have the lively crisp exterior and cloudlike interior you expect from a gougère, but with an incredibly intense combination of smoky bacon, roasted corn, and extra-sharp Cheddar.

You've encountered a million potato-bacon-cheese combos in your lifetime, but in retrospect they all seem to be rehearsals for this one, a classic of Miraglia Eriquez's Calabrian grandmother Mary Pacella, who immigrated to Brooklyn in 1934. Crispness abounds, from the bacon to the slight crust on the roasted potatoes, yielding to creamy, very potatoey interiors.

Using the pan drippings to sauté the vegetables allows the bacon's smokiness to permeate the whole dish. It's a striking complement to the sweet potatoes and red peppers. And don't fret about making too much—you won't have leftovers for long. The flavors will meld further and make for a terrific breakfast the next day.

Tiny bow-tie pasta takes this supreme comfort dish into another realm—it's kind of like fancy macaroni and cheese with bacon, and what could be better than that? At Zazu, the bacon is house-made and the eggs in the pasta and sauce come from their own hens. To stay true to that ideal, you might want to track down some local eggs and artisanal bacon when you make this dish at home.

Crème fraîche—a French heavy cream that's slightly sour—can be found in the dairy section of some supermarkets and at specialty foods stores.

With the exception of beef and cheese, there is no burger combination more revered than beef and bacon. Here, we've improved on a classic by putting crumbled pieces of cooked bacon in the middle of the burger. It adds unexpected bits of crisp texture and diffuses smoky flavor throughout the beef.

Full of sweet corn, smoky bacon, and delightfully briny clams, this light summer chowder is like having a whole New England clambake in a bowl.

This recipe alone is reason enough to grab your tote bag and head to the farmers market. Blackberry Farm dresses up the dish with parmesan foam and a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar, but the ingredients stand on their own beautifully. Slip a fried egg on top, and you have an easy summer supper.