Ghibli Week 4: Howl's Moving Castle Breakfast

This post we're going on an adventure to the countryside to find a magical, roaming castle! Howl's Moving Castle (ハウルの動く城) was released in 2004 and like Kiki's Delivery Service, was also based on a novel by accomplished fantasy writer, the late Diana Wynne Jones. 

(source) You'd never think this was a children's movie.

In this movie there's one scene associated with food that, if you ask people who've watched it, will spring to mind almost immediately. Admittedly, I only asked 3 people so my survey population is severely lacking but the point still stands. For people who've yet to watch this film, the scene I'm talking about is when the main character, Sophie, is making breakfast and bullying Calcifer into helping. This scene also gave rise to a great insult: 'May all your bacon burn.'

(source) The animation even makes eating eggshells look delicious

All I need now is a smart talking fire demon.

Bit of a cop out, since this isn't a recipe, but who can argue with bacon? The biggest issue for me was trying to get bacon that looked exactly like the one in the movie. Originally, I planned to use pork belly and cut that into a thick slice, then prep it with a dry rub of salt and spices; but I couldn't find pork belly that was thick enough so I was forced to use my back up plan: buy it from the store. The regular bacon rashers weren't exactly what I was looking for, I think most bacon is cut into the separate sections e.g. shortcut vs streaky, and I was determined to find bacon that stretched the length of the frypan. Luckily for me, I found the 'premium' section of bacon, and the many choices available, but you really can't go wrong whichever you pick. So it's pretty easy to recreate this dish; just fry two pieces of the bacon, then add four eggs and fry until your desired doneness. If you want a more authentic movie experience, you can serve it with a thick slice of sourdough, a chunk of cheese and a bowl of what I think is tea. Either way, you'll really bring home the bacon. 

Bacon

More bacon

Best bacon (it's about the length of my hand plus forearm)

It's very hard to find an angle that doesn't make it look like an...ahem.

omnomnomnom

Happy slothing!!

xx