Remembering My Gramma & How Bacon Grease Played A Role
My maternal grandmother (who had just suffered a paralyzing stroke) on the left, my son and my mom from 1986
You know how you hear a song on the radio from years ago and you can remember certain moments in your life when you first heard the song, had a memory of what you were doing when you heard the song; almost as if the song's rhythm and verses transport you back in time.
Well, the other day I had a nice comment chat with @basicstoliving about what our grandparents had taught us about gardening and different things; then last night we had breakfast for dinner and memories of my grandma filled my head.
I never ever pour grease down our kitchen sink drain and I was out of old glass jars from pickles and other condiments, so I grabbed an extra mason canning jar to temporarily store the bacon grease until it cooled. We headed to bed early, as it had been a long week, and I had forgotten about the bacon grease until this morning when I saw the glass jar on the kitchen counter this morning. Immediately my thoughts started recalling how my maternal grandma would save ALL of her bacon grease to re-use for other kitchen duties.
Walk Down Gramma's Memory Lane
Gramma would take the bacon grease she had collected over the week or last few weeks and use it to cook up EVERYTHING; from fried potatoes and onions to a small fish my great uncles would catch called smelt. Gramma was a wiz when it came to bacon grease.
Do you remember when half gallons of milk came in cardboard (plastic coated) cartons? Any given day you could visit her house and see two of these cartons sitting on the edge of her kitchen sink area; one for her precious bacon grease and the other for food waste that she would give to her neighbor who had four dogs. NOTHING went to waste in her kitchen.
Gramma also saved EVERY glass jar that she could. She always found a use for them. Whether for storing dry goods (ie. beans, rice) or for using to store her sewing items. There was no room in her house that was jar free. In her bathroom she kept one for her cotton balls, she had one in the hall linen closet full of mothballs... these glass jars invaded every inch of her house. And I have inherited that trait of saving the jars. While I have other uses (ie. grease collection in the kitchen, extra screws and bolts in the toolbox), I definitely see a use for all sizes of glass jars.
Gramma saved every vegetable uneaten from the dinner table. She would store them in her freezer (ice box as she called it) and she'd make her own version of mixed vegetables for future soups and stews. I can recall a few times when money was real tight, she'd throw in some potatoes to boil on the stove top in her homemade (canned) chicken broth then toss in a bag or two of her special mixed vegetables. Her own rendition of vegetable soup. It was filling and you never knew which vegetables would be in there. Sometimes it was okra and lima beans, while other times you could be eating corn and peas. But no matter what she had in the soup, it was always so good... and filling.
One time she had gotten a huge bagful of asparagus from a coworker (they kind of did a garden bartering at her workplace) and she would trim the bottoms of the asparagus off and into the icebox they went She would bring them out for a future Sunday family dinner, fry them up in her bacon grease drippings and serve them up. Honestly, they were SO GOOD!
I know bacon grease is not healthy to use for cooking, but back in the day, we all LOVED the bacon grease. Didn't you? Be honest... it made everything taste better.
I can also remember going to the butcher shop one time with Gramma and she only bought bones. Chicken bones, pork bones, beef bones. I can remember thinking... "ewww, this is gonna be an icky dinner". But Gramma used the bones to make broth. She spent the entire weekend making one HUGE pot filled with chicken, one of beef broth and one for pork broth. The house smelled of onions and meat. I swear every dog in the neighborhood wanted to come to her house to eat. She'd use the broth in all her meals. She even used the chicken broth when she blanched spinach. She got the spinach from one of her neighbors and spent a few hours blanching the green leaves then storing in the freezer. She'd add a handful when she made stews or ghoulash.
Gramma's house was built in 1938 and they had a well for water because the house was built before city water was out her way. She had a pump on the side of her kitchen sink and she used the well water instead of the city water. I can recall my mom telling me that gramma didn't want to pay for something that was free; and that my grandfather would be rolling in his grave if he knew she was wasting money.
I dedicate this post to my Gramma Cecilia; who not only taught me how to save money and be frugal, but for also passing down some unusual family traditions. I miss this woman immensely. She was always trying to teach me how to garden and I wish I had paid better attention to her words. I can still hear her voice as she'd say, "this is how you do this... never forget it". Sadly, I have forgotten so many lessons she taught me.
She had a massive stroke in June 1986, which left her paralyzed on the left side, and eventually she heed her calling to God in September 2001. I can't believe she has been gone from my life for 17 years. Her memory lives on in all of us in the family and my youngest daughter who gave birth to a beautiful little girl in November 2016, named the youngest grandchild, Cecilia Monroe, after my grandma and my oldest daughter's middle name is Cecilia. So Gramma lives on in every generation of the family; even if only namesake.
Strange how a little bacon grease can stir up so many emotions and memories
She sounds like a great gramma!
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Well, that was awesome! Thanks for stirring-up some good memories.
Wouldn't be so sure bacon fat isn't healthy for cooking. We haven't exactly gotten healthier as a population since the "low fat" and "vegetable oil" trend started, apart from the smoking related stuff. Much of the data comming in now seems to sugest both ideas might have been horribly off the mark. Eating less refined highly processed carbs and less highly processed oils like our grand parents did now seems to be the healthy way to live. I've switched from low fat medium protein to high fat high protein, zero processed and from veggie oils to olive oil and (grass fed) beef fat myself and my biomarkers and general health are all the better for it.
You are still missing it.
That is why I asked you if you know about or recommended to you about Ketogenic diet.
Ketogenic diet is actually as least as possible carbohydrates of any kind, low protein, with no doubt that some protein is crucial, fresh/raw vegetables and generous amounts of fats from animal sources like fish, meat, eggs and milk.
Most vegetable oils, even when organic are harmful due to their high concentration of the pro-inflammatory Omega-6 rather than Omega-3.
Cholesterol in itself and saturated fats are actually not harmful.
The more cholesterol you consume, the less it is produced by your own liver, and vice-versa.
The bad part about meat is the carbohydrates that are in it, like Mannose, Ribose, etc. which are highly deleterious sugars, more damaging even than fructose.
So it turns out, that fatty meat is much healthier than lean meat, and the fat itself contains fat soluble vitamins like A,D,E,K and some B vitamins too.
Watch "Sugar, The Bitter Truth", "Eric Berg" and "What I've Learned" on Youtube.
Beware of Eric Berg's and his likes knowingly deceitful video/s about the health benefits of honey.
Honey is worse a poison than white sugar due to its high fructose dosage, its carbohydrates content is almost pure fructose.
Otherwise, there is a lot to learn from him.
I feel like only a handful of people in the world may know more about nutrition than Eric Berg.
If you are into reading, I recommend John Yudkin which I did not read, but do recommend, and "Naturally Dangerous" which out of my character I read myself.
Salt is also not a problem as it is still used to be considered.
Legacy recommendations about drinking water are also exaggerated and harmful.
Further explanations to most of what I wrote are in the channels I recommended.
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycation (not glycolysis) phenomenon about sugars and their different tendencies for it, I read in other sources.
Another important condition to check for is the MTHFR mutation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenetetrahydrofolate_reductase
and in more general it would be wise to pay for a complete genomic sequencing to check for vulnerabilities in order to prevent them in time.
I am currently watching the Low Carb Breckenridge 2018 Conference video material, and there is some really amazing content in there. The videos are behind a paywall and available for watching for a limited time, but I've only watched half a day of material so far and it's already worth twice the $50 and a bit I paid for access. Learning new stuff with every speaker I watch.
The most fun is finding out about actual science underneath some of the stuff I had figured out for myself using control feedback on my own health metrics. Erynn Kay's talk included a piece on raw milk diary that really made my own diary experiences fall into place.
Dave Feldman gave an amazing talk about the whole cholesterol thing and "remnant VLDL" rather than LDL being the real culprit.
I think everyone who is concerned about their health and who has the time to watch the whole recorded stream before access expires, should fork out that $50 and watch the recorded streams. I have a lot more watching to do, but even if the rest turns out to be boring, I already got my money's worth.
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M mmm, you make an interesting point in this comment. We've transformed into an olive oil using house here over the last few years but you raised some thoughts now.
Where do you find beef based oils? Or do you use tallow?
No, I'm just buying ground beef fat from free range grass fed cows.
Those were such beautiful memories, @goldendawne. I never had the opportunity to get to know my grandparents; they'd passed by the time I came along...the Great Depression was hard on so many families. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you. It's just amazing how something so odd as bacon grease reminded me of days gone by.
I have a small bowl on my counter now from yesterday's bacon. I caramelized onions in it for homemade onion bread last night and fried eggs in it this morning. My Mamaw and my Momma both saved bacon grease and aluminum foil if it wasn't dirty. There was a whole bunch of other items in that save category, a bunch! I miss them both so I thank you for stirring a precious memory!
You re welcome... Oh yeah!!! Saving aluminum foil... my mom still does that too!
What a beautiful tribute to your Gramma. Wonderful post filled with love. ♥♥
Thank you. I just had to share the memories
Ahhh...bacon grease. One of life's greatest pleasures.
Lol... I know!! Now I've been craving fried potatoes and onions!
Everything is always better with some bacon grease. I remember my grandma even saving sausage grease to use sometimes in gravies and beans.
It's just a thing they did. I saved this glass jar and have been thinking of using it. Not really healthy but still... seems wasteful now.
I too have Great memories of the grandparents. I think the great depression had a lot to do with saving everything.
Oh yes!! I can remember watching the Waltons' tv show with my grandma and her saying, that's how we did it too
I loved reading about your gramma and her real cool ways! What a loving post! We also save all our bacon grease to use regularly, unlike my mom who saved it to throw out. I have now, and we had back then, septic systems and one thing that was pounded into my head is you NEVER send fat down the drain.
Oh yeah!! Septics do NOT like grease! My mom had the milk cartons on her kitchen counter too, then when milk cartons went wayside she started using old glass jars.