FOOD NEWS
Coolio's Favorite Special Ingredient Was So Relatable
By Hannah Beach
The late rapper Coolio developed a passion for food as a child, but it wasn’t until his mother died that he truly dove into cooking, giving all of her recipes his own special twist. Many of his recipes appeared on his web-based cooking show "Cookin' with Coolio," as well as in his 2009 cookbook of the same name — but it seems he had an extra secret ingredient up his sleeve.
The ingredient Coolio loved to work with the most was bacon. In a 2021 interview with FoodSided, the performer and gourmand referred to the ingredient as his "chef superpower" and recommended it highly as a way to "boost flavor" in a number of dishes.
Coolio's top recommendations for utilizing bacon at the time were adding it to sweet potato pie and using it to wrap corn. In 2021, the rapper went as far as to team up with the food processing company Hormel for a holiday season novelty item — bacon-scented wrapping paper.