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Thread: Southerner’s Guide to Bacon Grease

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    Default Southerner’s Guide to Bacon Grease

    Some folks still get it. I like the popcorn idea.

    From: Garden & Gun

    Southerner’s Guide to Bacon Grease

    One of G&G’s most popular articles, The Care and Keeping of Bacon Grease, always stirs a conversation on social media. Here are readers’ top tips, opinions, and advice on storing and using bacon grease.

    A few general thoughts on bacon grease:

    • Bacon grease rules! I have the cholesterol to prove it. —Mark Dillon

    • Don’t call it grease … that has a negative connotation. It’s Southern olive oil.—Donald Tomlin

    • That’s the only oil that touches my cornbread skillet.—Duwayne Wireman

    • I actually sort through the bacon to find a real fatty package so when I cook it I’ll get lots of bacon grease.—Woody Davis

    • Benton’s bacon fat is the best!— Jodi Pannone Savage

    …and surely no Southerner would exaggerate their reverence for the stuff.

    • It’s a holy oil. It’s the nectar of the Southern gods.—Tina Dubinsky-Bell

    • Bacon grease is my essential oil.—Frankie Allen Ferguson

    • Almost divorced my husband once because he threw out bacon grease.—Danielle Morris

    What do readers cook with bacon grease? (Short answer: everything.)

    • Cornbread, collards, black-eyed peas, meatloaf, roux for gravy, and most of all fresh baby butter beans.—Jane Hall Harmon

    • You just can’t season green beans without it.—Sharon Kurfman

    • My grandma made biscuits every morning. She would stick her hand in the grease and wipe some on the top of every biscuit just before she put them in the oven.—Russ Cherry

    • You never tasted fried chicken till you taste it fried in bacon fat.—Jim McDonough

    • My dad used to make popcorn with bacon grease. Best. Popcorn. Ever.—Billy Joe Davis

    • Made Chex Mix with it this year and it was AMAZING!—Donna Tanner

    • Good cornbread requires two things: a good cast iron skillet and bacon grease.—Lee Kennamer

    • When I get a quart saved up I make a big pot of chocolate brown roux in the oven for gravies and gumbos. Keeps forever like that, too.—Marc Wayne Jenkins

    • Tip: Buy generic bacon when it’s on sale, then render it for the precious fat and use the bacon bits left in Caesar salad, omelettes, pancakes, pasta, or waffles.—Lyle Beaugard

    • Kicks smoothies up a notch.—Warren H. Strange

    But it’s not just for cooking.

    • I save it to make suet cakes for the birds. Mix it with crunchy peanut butter, oatmeal, cornmeal, flour, cracked bird seed, and mealworms. They love it. Especially the woodpeckers and flickers.—Virginia M. Brummitt

    • It will make your dog’s coat nice and shiny.—Marilyn J.

    • Good on a squeaky hinge.—Jack Carter

    • We used to slather it on our horses’ hooves to keep them pliable … the barn cats would LOVE it. —Lori Moss Daniels

    Many folks say they store bacon grease in the refrigerator or freezer …

    • Run mine through a coffee filter into a mason jar when it’s still hot, let it cool, then store it in the fridge. Best method I’ve found.—Anderson Watt

    • Mason jar in the fridge. I don’t bother to filter it, just dump it in hot, bacon crumblings and all.—Ryan Brown

    • I keep mine in a coffee cup in the fridge like my father and his father before him.—Charlie Mullen

    • I’ve always kept mine in a ceramic bowl in the fridge. No problems! But when my daughter brought home her Yankee boyfriend at Christmas, she hid the bowl so he wouldn’t be grossed out.—Marilyn White

    • I freeze it in zip bags. When I need some, I break a piece off to use it.—Sra Lozano

    … while others say its place is anywhere but the fridge.

    • My grandmother had a tin canister on the stove and each day’s bacon grease went into it. NEVER in the fridge and a blob went into every veggie she decided to embalm.—Colleen Campbell

    • I still have my grease saver given to me in a bridal shower in 1950. I seldom cook enough bacon now to use it, but there it sets on the ledge between my stove and refrigerator.—Maxine Canoy Upchurch Province

    • Coffee can under the sink! Like my parents and grandparents before me.—Ashley DePriest Werling

    • My mom used a Crisco shortening can for bacon grease storage, and kept it in the drawer under the oven. It was such a critical cooking ingredient, I was almost an adult when I finally understood Mom was not saying “baking” grease.—Carol Meriwether

    • I’ve a special little speckle ware pot with a lid for just bacon drippings. Never cook vegetables without a little. Life’s too short not to.—Russell Hughes

    • My paternal grandmother who grew up in Georgia kept a small coffee pot-like container on her stove top. It held bacon grease, and whenever she wanted to add it to whatever she was cooking, which was almost always, she’d turn on the burner over which the pot sat, melt down the bacon grease, and then pour generous amounts into the pot or baking pan. She lived to 96 years of age.—Genie Glade Revelle

    • Well, my parents and grandparents, from Tennessee, kept theirs in a small aluminum container on the stove. Never refrigerated, always available. Nobody got sick … but we did get fat.—Pat Bodiford Hubel

    Others wonder why any self-respecting Southerner would store it in the first place.

    • Seems to me if you gotta store it, you ain’t using enough.—Tom Berger

    • I use it too fast to bother with “keeping” it.—Holly Polich

    • Save? We never have enough. We have BLTs for supper because Mom needs the bacon grease to cook squash the next day. She buys and fries bacon solely to obtain the grease.—Riki Childress

    • What do you mean “keeping bacon grease?” Shouldn’t any Southern kitchen worth its biscuits have a constant flow of bacon grease — sort of like bourbon on Derby day?—David

    • I’ll keep it safe in my belly.—Rick Tappan
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    It accompanied the bacon bits in my green beans, tonight.

    People who toss that stuff ain't right in the head.

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    That was good read

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    Marc Wayne Jenkins knows the deal..

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    I've made popcorn in it before. I can't tell much of a difference, but some people swear it tastes exactly like it.

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    I still can't get into Garden and Gun Magazine.

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    I have a pot that I put all my bacon grease in. The best fried quail I've ever eaten, were fried in bacon grease.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Highstrung View Post
    I still can't get into Garden and Gun Magazine.
    This is shocking... Lol
    "I'm just a victim of a circumstance"

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    Quote Originally Posted by Highstrung View Post
    I still can't get into Garden and Gun Magazine.
    It’s a yankee’s “how to” guide to be Southern. I haven’t found a whole lot relatable.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Highstrung View Post
    I still can't get into Garden and Gun Magazine.
    You and me both. They offered me a contract to use my images, but nahhh. I have several friends who contribute, but they spent waaaaay more time in New York as working adults than they ever did down here...

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    you ain't southern unless you done jacked off wit bacon grease- own up now

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    That's pretty f****** gross

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    In the past I haven't found it really authentic. That's just how I feel. I could type a long ramble of my thoughts on it, but honestly it doesn't matter. I don't have any qualms with anyone who likes it.
    Last edited by Highstrung; 02-28-2019 at 11:17 PM. Reason: Voice to text

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    Most journalists are libs, or have spent a lot of time in the company of libs and big cities, which is why every publication, even the ones that focus on hunting and the South come off as inauthentic.

    Now, let’s not allow our distaste for Yankees and SINOs (Southerners-In-Name-Only) to derail a perfectly good bacon grease thread.

    I have a container of God’s second greatest gift to man sitting next to the stove. I enjoy using it to fry eggs and coat grilled cheese sandwiches and am always trying to decide if I can make it work in whatever I’m cooking.
    Last edited by wskinner; 02-28-2019 at 11:18 PM.

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    I'm kinda intrigued by the Bacon Grease smoothie thing. Might be the only smoothie I'm likely to try.
    We gave you Corn,you gave us clap,bad trade.

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