CELEBRATING OUR SIZZLING FAVOURITE Bacon nutty!
DECLAN Donnelly and his wife Ali Astall celebrated the arrival of their daughter yesterday.
The TV host took to social media to break the news, saying: “Ali and I are thrilled to announce the arrival of our baby girl, Isla Elizabeth Anne, who was born just after 9 o’clock this morning.
“Mother and daughter both doing well, Dad is head over heels! D x”
It’s thought that Ali,
40, got pregnant soon after Dec returned from filming I’m A Celebrity in Australia.
Dec and talent manager Ali met more than a decade ago.
They started dating in
2013 and tied the knot in 2015.
Dec, 42, is due to present this year’s series of the jungle smash hit with Holly Willoughby.
His long-time co-host Ant McPartlin will not appearing on this year’s series after returning to rehab amid a conviction for drink driving.
Last year, Ant did a stint in rehab for a prescription painkiller addiction. BACON dates all the way back to 1,500BC, with the Chinese thought to be the first to cook salted pork bellies more than 3,000 years ago. This makes it one of the world’s oldest processed meats.
THE word comes from the German “bak” – referring to the pig’s back. “Bakko” translated to the French “bacco”, which was adopted in 12th century Britain as “bacoun”.
FARMERS and butchers made the meat, dry cured with salt and then smoked, for their communities. Then in the late 18th century a businessman named John Harris opened the first processing plant in Wiltshire where he created a recipe to brine the meat. The “Wiltshire Cure” is still used today.
THE phrase “Bringing home the bacon” has been used for centuries. Nowadays, it refers to making money, but in 12th century England its meaning hugely differed. Churches awarded a whole slab of ★ bacon to any man who could swear before God that he and his wife had not argued for a year and a day – so husbands who “brought home the bacon” were praised.
BACON helped win World War II. Households were asked to donate leftover grease to the war effort, as it could be used to make glycerin which is an element added to bombs, gunpowder and other munitions. A promo was even made starring Minnie Mouse and Pluto plugging the need for grease.
NOWADAYS, sales of bacon pale beside Britain’s other favourite pork product – sausages. But more than 40,000 tonnes of rashers were sold last year. Last week, we told how the price of your bacon butty was set to soar after the hot summer left the UK’s pigs’ fertility frazzled.
AND finally – wacky artist Mike Lahue once used a huge stack of bacon, glue and varnish to create a bust of Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon.