I was raised on a dairy farm. We grew about 99% of what we ate, including pigs for slaughter. We butchered our hogs and skinned them (never scalded a hog). We then took them to a butcher who processed them for us. A couple of days later, we would pick up a box of ground pork fat. We would then render that fat down for lard. The lard was then strained through cloth into metal buckets. What remained in the cloth were little BB's we called Cracklins. Those little Cracklins made the best corn bread which is nothing like the big cracklin chunks that you can buy today.
A few weeks later we would pick up the hams and bacon. We used an old German butcher. I do not know how he cured and smoked the meat, but I have never had any bacon or ham since that ever compared to what this gentleman produced. His process had a very balanced smoke/salt/sugar ratio. Everything that was fried was fried in that lard and the bacon grease that was saved. And we had something fried about 8 days a week.
So, short story long, yes we did and I do save bacon grease, but it's not the same as my childhood memories. Now, we rarely fry anything.
Just for fun, pop some popcorn in bacon grease. Thank me later.
Robert
