When I mentioned it to my honey, he was surprised and said that his family did too! Neither of us remembered when that can disappeared. My honey thinks it was in the late 70s with all the information on heart disease. I have no idea when it happened at my house, but there hasn't been a can on the stovetop for a long time.
But there's something comforting and homey in a can with bacon grease in it, at least for me. And when I searched the world wide interweb, I noticed other people like it too! There are lots of vintage grease holders on ebay for purchase and the blogger behind southernplate.com has an entire post dedicated to bacon grease.
There are recipes, fun facts and a lot of photos of bacon grease containers. Interestingly, not one of them are old tin cans, like mine is. She's even got this great World War II era Disney cartoon about bacon grease. Apparently, it helped win the war. Who knew?
I'm just hoping my leftover bacon grease will make that cornbread tasty!
I still keep a can of bacon grease, although I keep it in the refrigerator. Plus it doesn't get used all that often, but it is important to keep it on hand, just in case! One thing it is used for is conditioning my cast iron cookware - nothing else is right for that. butter? crisco? Bah! Bacon grease!!!
ReplyDeleteSomething like that was in EVERY kitchen during the mid 40s (usually a "tin" can like yours). Most people had an icebox back then which contained very heavy blocks of ice that a big "iceman" carried to the house every few days but the bacon fat was usually on or near the stove. The cans started to disappear during the 50s.
DeleteI keep a can of grease - not necessarily bacon - in the freezer in order to throw it away later. This way our burgers and ground beef dishes are less greasy, and we don't put the grease down the sink. I don't know if throwing it into the landfill is better or worse.
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