7 Layers of Kevin Bacon Dip

I’ve already expressed how much I enjoy the Super Bowl from a food perspective despite my utter apathy about football. But this year, with the big rematch between the Pats and the Giants, I have a real reason to actually get excited about the game itself…yes, MADONNA is performing!!! (Hehehe, I can’t wait to hear what Alyce has to say about that one… No, but seriously, I'm pretty excited about Madonna.)

For this year’s Super Bowl party at Fredna’s place (that would be Rob’s Aunt Edna and Uncle Fred, who are kind of like the Brangelina of Super Bowl parties), I’m planning to bring a mash-up between seven-layer dip and the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, and make a contest out of it—since it's a day for betting, after all.

The game plan (see what I did there?): I printed up sheets with a multiple-choice quiz, and everyone who ponies up $1 fills out a sheet matching the layers of the dip to the movies they represent. Either one person will get the most answers correct, or we do a random drawing from the entries tied for most correct (even if that number is zero). Surely this will be a fun gaming alternative for people who don’t care/know enough to bet on the actual football game. Download the quiz to play at your own Super Bowl party!

Here are the dip layers (in top-down order, 1-7), which, in a nod to the original “degrees” game, symbolize six of his movies, plus a bonus layer honoring Kevin himself. Can you match up which layer symbolizes which movie?

Quiz answers and explanations, as well as dip assembly instructions, after the jump.

7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon Dip (layers in top-down order)
1. Bacon
2. Spicy cheese
3. Corn
4. Sour cream
5. Ground beef
6. Salsa
7. Navy beans

And, emphatically not in order, since that is the whole point, the movies those layers represent:

a. Footloose
b. Diner
c. Friday the 13th
d. Kevin himself (seriously, if you don’t get this one…)
e. A Few Good Men
f. Wild Things
g. Apollo 13

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Answers, in top-down order:

1. (d)
Bacon (cooked and crumbled or chopped) – representing Kevin himself, duh

2. (f)
Spicy cheese (8 oz. jalapeno Jack, shredded) – Wild Things (because it’s a super-cheesy and “spicy” movie)

3. (a)
Corn (1 can, drained) – Footloose (because it’s set in Kansas or something, IDK … also it’s a super-corny movie)

4. (g)
Sour cream (2 c., or a 16-oz. container, spread out across the pan with a spatula or the back of a spoon) – Apollo 13 (because I really wanted there to be sour cream in this dip, and this is one of his more prominent movies because it resembles the cloud when a space rocket takes off!!!)

5. (b)
Ground beef (1 lb. sprinkled with salt/pepper/garlic and sautéed; fat drained) – Diner (because what do you order at diners? Burgers, that’s what)

6. (c)
Salsa (2 c. spread out across the pan with a spatula or the back of a spoon) – Friday the 13th (because it resembles blood and guts)

7. (e)
Navy beans (1 can, drained) – A Few Good Men (because Tom Cruise plays a Navy lawyer, and also there is no such thing as Marine beans, although there should be. If you feel like it’s a stretch to reference the Navy rather than the Marines, you could always buy dry navy beans and soak them overnight, so they would be underwater and therefore…oh, forget it, it’s still a stretch)

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Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400°. Brush a 8x10-ish roasting pan’s bottom and sides with olive oil or melted butter, and assemble the dip from layers 7 to 1. (If you're bringing his to a party as opposed to hosting, It suggest using one of those disposable aluminum pans from the supermarket, so you don’t have to be that obnoxious person who asks the host/hostess to wash your dish and leave it lying around until you get around to taking it back.)

Serve with tortilla chips. The scoopy kind might be good. Or you could use soft flour tortilla strips, or even pita. I leave it up to you, gentle reader, to figure out which Kevin Bacon movies, if any, these accoutrements might represent.

Don't forget, you can download the multiple-choice quiz to play this game at your own Super Bowl party! Mind you: If you’re planning on attending Fredna’s party and you’re reading this right now, please have the decency to recuse yourself from participation in the contest! Thank you in advance.

Special thanks to John Sic for collaborating on the concept for this dip during an excellent bar-stool brainstorm session!