Grease Bowl
Essential Kitchen Accessory of Appalachia
I happened into my 1904 built-in china cabinet this morning, while straightening the dining room in my old house. When I opened the upper-right door of the cabinet, I saw the dark-green glaze of the earthenware bowl used by my maternal grandmother for much of her life.
The object of my attention was a grease bowl. Before non-Appalachian readers and ‘foodies’ are taken aback, the grease bowl was used for the temporary, non-refrigerated storage of (mostly) bacon drippings. Why would anyone do that?
My maternal grandparents, my uncles and mostly every neighbor I had, raised at least one pig in a season. Bacon, sausage, ham or pork was on every menu. Canned, refrigerated or fresh, the meat was an essential staple, along with flour, leavening, lard and milk. Not just because my granddad wouldn’t touch chicken or beef (I never knew why), every meal had at least some pork product.
Bacon drippings were used to season cooked vegetables; and used to fry any meat product. Store-bought cooking oil only became a kitchen essential for my grandmother in the latter years of her life.
Now to the grease bowl. When the bacon drippings were poured from a hot skillet, the bowl was temporarily placed on the stove. After the contents cooled sufficiently on an enameled-metal…
