Bringing Home the Bacon

Bringing Home the Bacon

By Elaine Viets

My grandmother kept a pot of this in her kitchen and used it every day.

I know this will horrify some of our younger moms – she fed it to her grandchildren.

I’m talking about bacon grease. Recycled hog fat.

Bacon grease was the backbone of old-fashioned Southern cooking. Many a girdle-popping meal began with a big dollop of bacon grease melting in a cast-iron skillet.

Bacon grease was ideal for frying chicken, pork chops, baloney and eggs. It adds flavor to cornbread, grits and potatoes and onions with black pepper. Onions fried in bacon grease make a spectacular sandwich. Even shoe leather would be tender and tasty, fried in bacon grease.

Grandma kept her bacon grease in a special metal container that looked like a short fat cookie jar. Inside was a strainer that filtered out bits of bacon and burned stuff. The grease in the bottom hardened into lard.

After the food was forked onto the serving platters, the hot grease was poured back in the strainer to be used again. And again.

Whenever fat was required in a recipe, Grandma added a dollop of recycled bacon grease. God knows how old that grease was when it finally hit our plate again.

I can hear the health-conscious thinking, "Eeuw." Maybe by today’s low-fat, high-fiber standards, recycled bacon grease was unhealthy. Especially when it sat unrefrigerated on a kitchen stove, summer and winter. It had about 35 calories a teaspoon.

But in my neighborhood, kitchens ran on recycled bacon fat. Bacon grease was an all-natural ingredient with the amazing ability to turn health food into a nutritional nightmare. Vegetables went down faster with a hunk of melted bacon grease. Green beans were made for onions and bacon grease. In the summer, when folks had their own garden patches, my grandmother made wilted lettuce salad – white vinegar, hot bacon grease, sugar, new lettuce and green onions. Delicious, and endorsed by Elvis Institute for All-American Eating. I can feel my arteries clogging, just thinking about it.

You used to be able to buy a bacon grease strainer as part of a kitchen cannister set. The canisters would be marked FLOUR, SUGAR, SALT and GREASE. Some cooks preferred a Mason jar full of grease, or a coffee can.

Sometime while I was away at college, the bacon grease strainer disappeared. When I was a bride, I received many splendid and useless objects for wedding and shower gifts, but no bacon grease strainers. I’ve seen some sold online for about $15, but they lack authority.

Jinny Peterson used to keep a fake blue teapot filled with grease on the back of her stove. She believes grease strainers "disappeared with the coming of the microwave oven. That is when I got rid of mine. I ‘waved’ the bacon and the grease went into the paper towel and wasn't saved. I also started to steam the veggies and didn't put that big clump of bacon grease in the pot to boil them."

Many Jewish cooks used chicken fat instead of bacon grease. "It was a major treat to put chicken fat on matzoh during Passover," one friend told me. "Might explain why heart disease is rampant among Jewish people."

I suspect chicken fat and bacon grease oiled the way out of this world for many people in grandmother’s generation.

Grandma knew about Olive Oyl – as a character in "Popeye." But using that Eye-talian oil in American cooking would have seemed unpatriotic. America ran on recycled grease. It made our country great and our bodies as well as our arteries hard. For all Grandma knew, George Washington crossed the Delaware on bacon grease.

"Heart healthy" was not a term that would have impressed her. She smoked, drank, cussed a bit and poured bacon grease on everything but the davenport.

Her philosophy was, "Might as well enjoy yourself. Nobody gets out of here alive."

Comments

[Lynn]

Since my daughter and I discovered turkey bacon, there is no more bacon grease in our house. In fact, we have to use a bit of the "Eyetalian" stuff to make sure the bacon doesn't stick to the pan.

[Laura (in PA)]

My mother did the bacon grease in the coffee can. She did keep it in the refrigerator though. I can remember her frying bacon, then when it was done, cooking eggs in the grease. They were awesome.

When it wasn't bacon grease, it was Crisco. The solid kind. She now (in her 80s) has about 8 stents in her arteries. Hmmm.

My husband swears by the turkey bacon, but I can't get into it. When I want bacon, I want crispy, fattening, bacon. I settle for infrequently instead of substituting the turkey variety.

Now I'm off to find something for breakfast. Unfortunately, it will probably be Cheerios, now that I'm craving a bacon and toast sandwich.

[William Simon]

Two eggs, bacon, toast, milk, and juice was once considered a healthy breakfast; your mom was a Bad Mom if you didn't get that every morning. It always started with a big scoop of leftover grease on the griddle or in the skillet. And it filled the kitchen with such a nice comforting smell. It was Home.

Mention that as a regular breakfast now and watch the horrified looks you get.

Gotta agree with Elaine's grandmother on this one.... might as well enjoy while we're here!

[Susan]

Ah, the joys of pork fat. As Emeril has famously stated, it rules. I too had a grandmother and a mother who faithfully kept a crock on the windowsill of the kitchen at all time. My grandmother had no fear of fat, and would often thicken up her bacon drippings with a little flour and milk and dump the resulting "dipsop" onto some beautifully toasted (white) bread. Talk about good.

Alas, I also microwave my bacon these days so I am not tempted to use bacon fat too often in my cooking. Every summer, however, I do make a giant pot of fresh green beans, onions and potatoes swimming in bacon grease. It's a complete meal and, man, there's something about it that just speaks to my soul. The beans don't crunch at all like a 21st century properly steamed vegetable; they melt into delicious porky goodness with the rest of the ingredients. William is right. There are some things that just feel like Home and, at least for this SW Pa. girl, the smell of bacon grease is just that.

[Kathryn Reschini Sweeney]

First of all, I am going to start re-using the word davenport. What a great word! My grandparents used that word, but not bacon grease.

The Eye-talian side used olive oil for cooking and heaven knows what they used for deserts (and don't laugh - if you've never had zeppolli or bow knots with honey, you don't know what you're missing).

The Irish side just put the bacon right in there, I think. But no way would my Irish Grandma have anything as messy as bacon grease sitting in her kitchen.

And Amen on your Grandma's philosophy - take no chances - eat desert first!

[ramona]

I live near the Delaware and I will never, never look upon the river again without the line "For all Grandma knew, George Washington crossed the Delaware on bacon grease" popping into my head. Elaine, that is too funny!

Davenport is an excellent word, but here's another good one: lard. It is, I believe, the scientific term for bacon grease. It is the cultural term for "yum." In Louisiana, you can still find restaurants (usually former filling stations converted to fish-fry shacks) that have the sign We Use Lard in the windows. The parking lots are usually jammed with Cadillacs, Jaguars and cop cars.

As for cooking with lard, why do you think so many Southerners pray before they eat?

BTW, Elaine, I'm going to start searching for a bacon strainer. I know there are still some out there.

[Joyce Tremel]

We always had bacon grease in our kitchen, too. Mom kept it in the refrigerator, though. And wilted lettuce. Sigh. Probably the only vegetable (if you can even call it that) I'd eat as a kid.

On one of the segments of "The War" that was on PBS, a woman talked about everyone in the neighborhood saving their bacon grease. They'd collect it and it would go in large containers for the war effort. I think she said they made silicone out of it, which doesn't sound right to me, but what do I know?

[ramona]

Somewhere in Joyce's comment is a joke about pig fat and boob jobs, but it's just not jelling for me. Where's Josh this morning?

[Nancy Martin]

In my youth, no kitichen was complete without a can of Crisco in the lazy susan. I can't remember the last time I bought such a thing. Do they still sell it?

The only thing I remember distinctly about my grandmother's kitchen was the enormous tin of homemade sour cream sugar cookies she kept under her kitchen table. I wish I had the recipe for those!

[William Simon]

Josh must be sleeping, ramona, but I found your comments to be quite titillating....

[Maryann Mercer]

My dad lived to be 91 1/2 and still had the coffee can of bacon grease sitting on the counter when he passed away. I remember it from my childhood, along with the Crisco which I still have in my cupboard for making shortbread by my mom's old recipe from Scotland (actually that calls for lard, but even I am not that brave anymore). We were talking about food last night at my Reasonable Diet group (of course) and all of us remember our parents eating food that is considered NOT healthy today, except for one thing-no preservatives. Meat and eggs came directly from the farm, so did produce, and not one of the chicken breasts on the table had been injected with anything!
We always said davenport too :o) And Nancy, I know the cookies you're talking about...if I can find a recipe I'll pass it on.
Anyone hear from Harley?

[Maryann Mercer]

Nancy: Here's the one from my really old Betty Crocker cookbook...shortening and all :o)

Betty Crocker Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

½ cup shortening (part butter)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp nutmeg
½ cup sour cream

Pre-heat oven to 425F Cream together shortening, sugar, vanilla and egg. Measure flour into separate bowl and add dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream. Divide dough and roll out to ¼ inch thickness on well-floured pastry cloth or board. Cut with 2-inch cutter; place on greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar. Bak 8-10 minutes or until delicately golden. 4-5 dozen 2-inch cookies

[Elaine Viets]

Praise the lard! Remember when it was advertised as "pure leaf lard" whatever that was? I think it was the same as shortning, but it was darn good in pies and other desserts.

[Mary Eman]

A couple of years ago, I saw a great bumper sticker: "Eat right, exercise, die anyway".

My grandmother always said davenport for sofa, and used bacon grease and lard in her cooking. She firmly believed that the only way to turn out decent pie crust or biscuits was by using lard. (And her pie crusts were magnificent, as were her biscuits.)

Let me add that she died at age 96.

[Joyce Tremel]

Anyone ever notice that obesity only became an epidemic after all the "healthy" sugar-free and fat-free products came out?

[Kerry, The Martial Tart]

Oh, the memories! My Mom's grease container was copper and sat in the 'fridge (which my grandmother always referred to as "The Fridgidaire"). No strainer, though -- the solid bits added more flavor. Eggs were always fried in bacon grease (a LOT of bacon grease -- enough to kind of float them in the cast-iron skillet with enough left to spoon onto the yolks). I don't think she used it for much else, though, at least not that I can think of (Mom was a Pittsburgh girl, not a southerner).

Crisco, though, now that's a whole 'nother story. I'm sure it was a major contributing factor to the absolute heaven that was her pie crusts, and made our Friday fish-and-chips utterly delectable (and can I just say that I've still never forgiven Pope Paul for rescinding the whole 'no meat on Friday' thing?). It went into every baked good that came out of our house -- and my Mom baked a lot.

Crisco, of course, is basically pure trans-fat, so is now a major no-no. As is the lard. Especially for those of us embarked on Making Healthy Lifestyle Changes.

Sigh.

[Josh]

The only fire with a name that I could find and that seemed to be near Harley's area was the "Malibu Canyon" fire. As of this morning, KTLA reported that it was 80% contained and schools and some canyon roads were reopening. This, I found at CNN.com.

Now, I don't know exactly where Harley lives other than what is on her book flap (Topanga Canyon), so I could be wrong, but if I'm not, she should be out of the woods.

Perhaps some Blog Sisters who know where she lives can look it up on Google maps or MSN Earth or something like that. Those resources are available, but you need more information than I have.

[Tasha Alexander]

Ohhh....my mother always had the bacon grease. So very good! You're making me hungry, Elaine...

Life is too short to eat bad food.

[Josh]

Okay.

I confirmed on this map: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21436901 that Topanga Canyon evacuated because of the Malibu Canyon fire. This map says that as of 8:00 Eastern Time today, the fire was 75% contained.

[Maryann Mercer]

Thanks, Josh :o)

[Rebecca the Bookseller]

On Harley -- if Google Earth is current, her house looks fine and there are green trees all around.

None of us have called her because we are trying to respect the directive to leave lines open for emergency use.

As far as we know, she and the kids, who evacuated early, are fine.

Elaine - great blog. Never did the bacon grease, but always had Crisco. My Mom's best chocolate chip cookies still have Crisco.

[Rebecca the Bookseller]

P.S. Lest anyone think these fires aren't powerful, they have succeeded in getting Josh to essentially ignore several easy layups on breast humor.

[Mary Storyteller]

Ooh, y'all have made me so hungry! Good thing I already had plans to visit Miss Aimee B's for eggs Benedict and French toast. My grandma cooked with grease, too, and used lard for pie crusts. Dad said that back on the farm she created baked wonders that women with modern stoves could only dream of, and she also lived into her 90's. God help any doctor who told her to lose weight, "This is from good cooking and good eating!"
** English teacher quibble here: I always feel cheated when I see dessert spelled as desert, mostly because of my students' mnemonic clues, strawberry shortcake and "one desert is plenty, but I'd like two desserts."

[Mary Storyteller]

Hijack topic: a friend in West Virginia forwarded a letter regarding censorship of books. It's wonderful! I found many references on the web, but not the full text. I'll paste in just a bit. --
The school board of Charleston, West Virginia, has sullied that gift and shamed themselves and their community. You’ve now entered the ranks of censors, book-banners, and teacher-haters, and the word will spread. Good teachers will avoid you as though you had cholera. But here is my favorite thing: Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots, they don’t know how the world works — but writers and English teachers do.

I salute the English teachers of Charleston, West Virginia, and send my affection to their students. West Virginians, you’ve just done what history warned you against — you’ve riled a Hatfield.


Sincerely,

Pat Conroy

[ramona]

Mary, I love Pat Conroy. Have you ever seen his cookbook? He has a recipe for Breakfast Shrimp and Grits that also includes--you guessed it--bacon.

[Mary Storyteller]

What a guy!

[Elaine Viets]

Look no more, Ramona. Here's a URL for a bacon grease strainer on Amazon, of all things.

http://www.amazon.com/RSVP-International-Fryers-Friend-Grease/dp/B0000DDVV7

[Elaine Viets]

I know you're all worried about Harley. We have information that she's fine, or as fine as you can be when you evacuate your home and take three kids.
Our own Tart fan, Tom, has been giving us regular updates on the fires. At this point, it looks as if Harley's house is unscathed.

[Cate]

My mother STILL has a pan of bacon grease on the back of the stove. I don't keep one, but when I go to visit, I always have two eggs fried in it. OMG they are so good.

[michele]

Thanks for encouraging a walk down memory lane, Elaine. I don't know much about bacon grease, but being half Peurto Rican and half Jewish I know from starchy, greasy food. Matzoh ball soup, brisket, rice and beans, roast pork, kugel, you name it. I would not've wanted to grow up without that stuff. The key is not to eat it at every meal.

[michele]

We're all SO glad to hear that Harley's house is okay!! Many thanks to Tom for sharing that news.

PS -- It's my understanding that Google Earth is updated only once every two years.

[Tom]

Yeah, Josh, the maps show no breakouts directly in the Topanga Canyon area. So far, so good.

But remember : 'safe/not safe' can change in a minute, with a switch in wind direction. We've had years of drought here in SoCal, with occasional downpours to feed the growth of new scrub fuel. And it's a desert to start with; we've tried to change that, and we can't.

The HarleyKids are out on the road somewhere, I guess - maybe hangin' with the real-world Joey and Fredereeq. Our San Diego nephew grabbed his kids and his ex-wife and headed out of town with the other 900,000 people who bailed. They're in a motel half-way to Tucson. Can't be fun.

We have a long way to go in this fire season.

[hollygee]

Elaine, you brought back a crystal clear image of my mom's brushed aluminum grease strainer that, yes, was one part of her canister set. I haven't thought about that in years.

Lard does make the finest pie pastry, but not that block of stuff that you can still get in the supermarket. That is just nasty smelling/tasting. Get the lard from that other almost extinct species, an old-time butcher.

[Josh]

There's a real-world Joey and Fredereeq? I always thought that Joey and Wollie were two halves of Harley.

Now I have to think back to who could be Joey, soap actress and action TV star. Time to ask my wife.

[Michael]

I’m with Laura, I’d rather have the “Real Stuff” as an infrequent treat, rather than some half hearted PC imitation.

I actually own a cast iron skillet. And yep, I’ve been known to cook (PORK) bacon in it, and fry up some eggs in the grease. As they say here in Texas; “Mmmmm, boy!”

The other essential component of the Old Fashioned Breakfast: Real pancakes made on a cast iron griddle, greased with real butter. The marbling effect just can’t be duplicated on a non stick cooking surface.

Pancakes cooked on non-stick surfaces have a smooth, uniform texture that reminds me of a clean room full of white plastic jump-suited technicians hovering over a silicon wafer.

Give me Old Tech in the kitchen, please.

[Elaine Viets]

Pancakes in butter? Michael, I am itching to pour my soy milk down the drain and fix the real thing.

[Michael]

GO for it Elaine!

I hear soy milk makes an excellent drain cleaner anyway.

[PJ Parrish]

Oh wow...that coffee can full of grease sitting on the counter next to the ice box. Bringing back memories there, Elaine!

We had a housekeeper named Florence who also kept a bottle of old milk to make sour-milk pancakes. Yum!

[Pam aka SisterZip]

Both of my grandmothers had the grease pot on the stove and so did my mom. I was a freak in my German/Dutch English home...I didn't like the green beans mushed with bacon grease & onions. I have never liked very greasy things much; it just doesn't set well.

But my half-sister's grandmother has a recipe for oatmeal cookies that you add bacon grease to and they are to die for. As soon as I get home I will post it. I am a cookie nut and love to try new recipes...that sour cream sugar cookie sounds good.

I still have a small can of Crisco in the cabinet to grease & flour cake pans (on the RARE occasion that I bake anything). And I keep a little bacon grease in the fridge when Dear Hubby craves biscuits & gravy.

[Tom]

Josh, I have no idea whether or not there are a real-life Fredereeq and Joey. It's just my nagging tendency to fill in unknowns with imaginings. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

[Josh]

Darn! Because I know that there is a real-life basis for Bubbles. I may have even met her.

[Emmy]

Your grandmother and my great-grandfather must be partying somewhere together. He always had a coffee can of bacon grease on his stove, in his un-airconditioned house, all year round. He also apparently ate raw bacon every day, and drank like a fish. He lived to 97.

[annette]

Elaine, thanks for the link to that bacon grease strainer. I remember my grandmother, my father's mother kept one on the stovetop. Now I can order one to give my husband at Christmas. He is a master breakfast chef. He loves to make bacon or sausages, eggs, biscuits, pancakes, waffles and of coarse grits. He keeps the bacon drippings in a tightly sealed jar UNDER the kitchen sink.

[William Simon]

Elaine, ditch the soy milk, grab Don, and head out to IHOP. The Breakfast Sampler: two eggs, two bacon strips, two sausage links, two ham strips. Big ol' chunk of hash browns. Two pancakes, or the "special" of the month; this one is crepes. (Yes, the cinnamon apple walnut are terrific.) Follow with a gallon or so of coffee, and a large juice of your choice, and it's as close to heaven as we can get in this day and age of Political Correctness in the Kitchen....:)

[Nancy Martin]

Either William has given up his Healthy Lifestyle Changes like Lindsay Lohan busting out of rehab, or he's dreaming about nothing but food these days. I feel your pain, honey.

[Kerry, the Martial Tart]

William, you're killing me! Except I loooooove the Harvest Nut Combo (those pancakes are to die for).

Why does my Southwestern Egg-white Frittata sound just the teensiest bit unappealing at the moment?????

[William Simon]

Actually, y'all, that's my Major Weekly Indulgence! There are times I believe I can hear my arteries clogging as I order, but as Elaine's grandmother said....:)

[michele]

I love IHOP, but you know what I really love? Waffle House. Give me some eggs and grits!

[annette]

I really must brag about my husband's grits. He makes them better than any restuarant. He can stand right next to me and give exact directions, but I jst can't cook 'em like he can.

[Avis in NH]

Nancy, if the above recipe for Sour Cream Sugar Cookies doesn't look familiar, this link has multiple pages of recipies. Enjoy!

http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,sour_cream_sugar_cookies,FF.html

[Rita Scott]

This has made me so hungry! I'm going to get my can of bacon grease out of the fridge and fry up some taters!
My grandma used to crumble bacon on the waffle iron before adding the batter. Bacon waffles, yum!

[Tom]

The Ozark Princess speaks thusly:

The second-best thing a body can do with bacon grease is fry 'taters with it in a cast-iron skillet.

For the very best thing a body can do with bacon grease, yeh gotta turn on the oven tain minutes before them 'taters is done, and whup up a batcha corn brayd batter.

Turn out the 'taters, throw in a big dollop more grease and put the skillet inna oven to heat up. Give 'er tain minutes to get really, really hawt. Hawt. I'm talkin' aitch ohh tee HAWT. Then take 'er outter the oven, an'be kerfull, 'cuz that son is , you know, HAWT.

Set 'er on the stove burner (don't turn the burner on, yeh city slicker!), keep a safe distance, an' get the batter for the corn brayd; turn yer head away 'cuz of the spatter risk - be careful! - an' pour in that batter. Watch how the bacon grease - damn, that's hawt - makes the batter climb up the sides an' up an' up and turn all brown an' lacy around the edges.

Put 'er all back inna oven and bake 'er 'til golden and gooo-ood!

Eee-yumm!

[Luce]

I was shocked one day when I opened up a friend's refrigerator and found her stash of Schmaltz. She explained to me it was rendered chicken fat. This was from a person who didn't eat red meat or pork and ate mostly vegetables. But I learned whenever she did cook chicken she would save the fat - as her Jewish mother and grandmother did. I can't remember what she said she used it for - I was too flabbergasted to even see it in her possession.

In our family the guilty pleasure was chicherones - pork rinds. Let's face it the best part of a pork roast is the crispy skin with the layer of fat underneath. I feel my arteries closing up just thinking about it. But Yummm

[Clea Simon]

Schmaltz is the secret weapon in all good Jewish/Eastern European cooking. It's what makes kasha taste like more than cardboard!

My absolute sweetheart of a mother-in-law (really, she's nice, smart, independent, and lives in another state) is one of the most generous people I know. But if you ask for one of the frozen, foil-wrapped balls of schmaltz she keeps in her freezer, she gets a certain look on her face, retrieves it, and then -- looking you in the eye -- asks, "Are you really going to use all of it, or will half a ball do?"

[Lynn]

My mom had a red tomato that she kept the bacon grease in on top of the stove. And it went into everything, including her cornbread. 100 degrees in the shade, and the bacon grease was still sitting there, although you didn't have to melt it.

I remember being upset that I had to use Crisco in my cookies. I wanted real butter, but that was way too expensive. And a lot of times, we didn't have Crisco, just lard from the last pig that got the ax. That was what my mom used for pie crusts. And don't get me started on mince meat.

Thanksgiving is on its way though...

[Moanna]

Head cheese anyone?

[Moanna]

P.S. Oh wow, you're THAT Elaine Viets! The best-ever contributor to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.