Bringing home the bacon; taste FOOD MATTERS BUY LOCAL CAMPAIGN Taste is joining forces with this year's Eat! Newcastle Gateshead food and drink festival to sniff out the North East's best bacon butty. And as Jane Hall finds, the region has a long and distinguished history in bringing.

AHH ... the smell of bacon wafting on the breeze. There's nothing guaranteed to wake up dormant taste buds more first thing in the morning.

So addictive is the odour that even vegetarians have been known to waver at the thought of a bacon sandwich.

And it's an aroma that has had northerners drooling for at least 2,000 years.

For it seems the sight, sound and smell of sizzling bacon come first light of day was as familiar along the 73 miles of Hadrian's Wall nearly two millennia ago as it is now in the region's homes, cafes, sandwich bars and truck stops.

Soldiers stationed on this most potent symbol of Roman power believed in kick-starting their day the right way and enjoyed nothing better than consuming crisp, thick-cut slices of home cured lardum.

And in a classic example of the simplest idea being the best, it's a tradition that is still being played out on the Wall to this day.

Just as the Roman Army was said to march on its stomach, so it seems do archaeologists. Those working at the Vindolanda Roman fort and civilian settlement south of Hadrian's Wall are just as partial to a bacon butty at the beginning of their working day as the very people whose lives they are now digging up from the past.

Andrew Birley, director of excavations at The Vindolanda Trust at Bardon Mill, says: "We love our bacon sandwiches here at Vindolanda and feel we are carrying on a fine and noble tradition.

"With freshly baked bread, newly churned butter combined with bacon cooked in a smoky clay oven or over an open fire, it is possible that some of the best bacon butties ever to have been consumed in the history of Northumberland were regularly demolished by the Romans.

"All they needed was a ketchup, and luckily for them they even had their own version of that, although today we might baulk at the idea of adding fish sauce to a bacon butty.

"It is safe to say that the traditional bacon butty has a heritage which stretches back thousands of years in Northumberland."

Andrew, whose preference is streaky rashers on freshly baked bread with butter and tomato ketchup ("It's just the job first thing"), believes Vindolanda can still lay claim to being the home of the best bacon sarnie.

Many may beg to differ, however.

Which is why The Journal's Taste North East England campaign is joining forces with this year's Eat!

NewcastleGateshead food and drink festival to find the region's best bacon butty.

The appropriately named B-Factor aims to track down the North East's best bacon bite bar none. Is it a combination of crispiness, thickness and sauce?

Should the bacon be encased in freshly baked bread or toast? And does microwaving, as favoured by celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, beat frying or grilling?

Whatever your choice, the message is simple: we want you to tell us what your perfect bacon butty moment is. We know people are passionate about their bacon sandwiches. And the main objective of the B-Factor is to honour those who go that extra mile in creating the perfect sandwich moment.

It could be your local cafe; a truckers' roadside stop or even your own post-hangover bacon butty cure. All you have to do is tell us in 25 or fewer words what makes you passionate about your favourite bacon collation.

Taste and texture will be high on the list of the judging panel's criteria.

But special commendations will also be given to those who use locally sourced and produced ingredients - in line with the ethos behind The Journal's buy, use, eat local Taste initiative.

Nominations open on April 1 (don't be fooled into thinking the B-Factor is a joke), and a shortlist will be produced before judging by the panel, which will include Ian Brown, senior lecturer in food studies at Northumbria University, and Mark Robertson, owner of the Northumberland Cheese Company and an Eat! steering group veteran.

The winner will be announced on May 1 and will be featured at events and demonstrations during the Eat! festival, which runs from May 2-17. It's a trophy the archaeologists at Vindolanda are keen to add to their collection. For Andrew Birley believes we also have our Roman forebears to thank for giving us another great foodie tradition, the English breakfast.

Every group of eight soldiers had a skillet that folded away in their pack and enabled them to have a fry-up even on campaign.

"The Roman army marched on its stomach and they loved to eat bacon as part of a high calorie diet," Andrew explains. There is no doubt at all that an enormous amount of bacon would have been needed to keep the soldiers going, and it is not difficult to imagine a scene of thousands of soldiers right along Hadrian's Wall waking up in the morning to the sizzling and irresistible smell of their own version of the bacon butty being prepared for breakfast as the sun rose on a new day.

"In fact, just about all the parts of what we think of today as a full English Breakfast go at least as far back as Roman times, and in some cases a great deal further than that.

"The smell of cooking bacon would have greeted travellers to just about every Roman fort in the region.

"At the fort of Vindolanda, we know the name of one of the men who was charged with making sure the garrison did not miss out on their own version of the bacon butty, Lucco. He is the earliest recorded pig herder from Britain and he lived in Northumberland over 20 years before Hadrian's Wall was constructed. His name is recorded on a writing tablet.

"During the 2008 excavations three small butchered piglets were found inside the granaries at Vindolanda. It is very likely that they had been hung up inside the building to be cured to make bacon."

The Roman version of our bacon butty would have been nutritious and healthy. As the Romans enjoyed a mixed Mediterranean and northern European diet, it is likely they would have fried their food in olive oil.

Breakfast was the most important meal of the day for the soldiers.

Romans tended to skip lunch and eat again in the evening. Andrew says: "They would have loaded themselves up on food in the morning. They would have had a healthy and hearty breakfast which would probably have consisted of a porridge mix - a bit like gruel - supplemented with other things like fish, freshly leavened bread, leftover meat and, of course, bacon. The soldiers needed around 5,000 calories a day to keep going - twice as many as we need now - so they consumed a high protein diet."

Gourmet Apicius - whose Roman cookbook from the 1st Century AD is the only one to have survived - provides recipes for all kinds of ancient culinary dishes, many of which included cured pork.

The Romans' love affair with this delicacy hasn't even escaped the attentions of the literary duo Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, creators of that great cartoon classic, Asterix the Gaul.

As everyone knows, Asterix and his village in Gaul had been holding out against the forces of Julius Caesar with the help of a magic potion.

In Asterix in Spain, the Gauls go to the aid of a village of brave Iberians whose imposing chief goes under the name of Huevos y Bacon (eggs and bacon).

Now that's yendo el cerdo entero! Going the whole hog.

BACON FACTS

BACON is part of our heritage. Romans were salting sides of bacon in 200BC and Julius Caesar brought his own when he landed here in 55BC.

The term bacon derives from the French "bako", common Germanic "bakkon" and Old Teutonic "backe".

For years cured or preserved bacon gave our ancestors their only meat in harsh winters.

Roman soldiers received a salarium, a ration of salt, as part of their pay. Salt was a prized commodity, partly owing to its necessity for preserving meat. This is where the word salary comes from.

Pig meat is the most popular in-home meat eaten.

Bacon is a good source of vitamins B1 and B12 as well as antioxidants zinc and selenium.

THE B-FACTOR

WHAT: Your opportunity to vote for what you think is the best bacon butty in the region.

When: Nominations are open between April 1-21 at www.NewcastleGateshead.com/EAT or go to www.journallive.co.uk/taste and click on the link Who: Nominations are invited for individuals (perhaps a friend or relative who makes the perfect butty), restaurant, cafe or takeaway anywhere in the North East. Bonus points will be given to those who use locally sourced ingredients.

Extra filling: You will need to the contact details and address of the nominee and explain in no more than 25 words why you are nominating them.

Last bite: A panel of expert judges will announce the winner on May 1, the opening date of Eat!

Newcast le Gateshead.

The ketchup on the bacon: It is hoped the winner will feature in Eat! events.

SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE SAYINGS HAVE BACON CONNOTATIONS.

TO bring home the bacon: One possible origin goes back to the Essex village of Dunmow where, it is said, in AD1111 a noblewoman offered a prize of a side of bacon, a "flitch", to any man in England who could say he had had marital harmony for the preceding year and a day. In more than 500 years, there were only eight winners!

To save one's bacon: The word could derive from "baec", Old Dutch and Anglo Saxon for back.

Another suggestion is that in the early 17th Century, bacon was thieves' slang for escape.

Or it may mean the sides of home-killed bacon every peasant family would have hanging in the house; this would have been valuable and if saved from fire or theft, they would have had a narrow escape.

VINDOLANDA

VINDOLANDA is a fascinating Roman fort and civilian settlement just south of Hadrian's Wall near Bardon Mill, Northumberland, which features not only excavated remains but replicas of a shop, temple, house, croft and fort. Excavations are also ongoing.

The Roman Army Museum stands beside one of the best-preserved sections of Wall and offers an insight into garrison life.

The site is open 10am-5pm daily. A family ticket (two adults and two children) for both sites is pounds 23.50. Children under five go free. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

DO AS ROMANS DID Sampling the bacon butties at Vindolanda, near Bardon Mill, as legionaires did centuries ago, from left, Jeff Vickers, Andrew Birley and Justin Blake.; ARMY ON MARCH Butties at Vindolanda maintain a long tradition.