How did bacon fat help the war effort?

Found a recipe Grandma snipped out of “Woman’s Day” circa 1944 (green bean / paprika / Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup casserole – no wonder Grandpa was so keen to ship off). Anyway, lower down on the page there’s a friendly little cartoon Civil Defense guy in his flying saucer helmet with a word balloon saying:

"Save Your Bacon Drippings.

Fat and tallow are a vital element to the war effort, and not something to be thrown away. Keep your drippings and use them in place of cooking oils, or save them in an empty coffee can and take them to your butcher or local Civil Defense station."

I have this funny mental image of a bunch of potbellied late-middle age guys in their uniforms and CD armbands at at the Civil Defense station (the basement of the local Lutheran church) graciously accepting a can of stinky drippings from June Cleaver, then peering at the growing pile of greasy cans and thinking “what the f*ck are we expected to do with this?”

So what made those bacon drippings so valuble to the war effort? I just can’t imagine them bieng refined and used as lubricant instead of a petroleum product. All the hydrogenation in the world won’t make a plastic out of them. Honestly, I’m stumped.

You can make soap out of bacon drippings. Did you see “Fight Club”? :slight_smile:

Well using the drippings instead of vegtible oils would cut down on the quantity of cooking oil being used and make food tastier too. As for what the the local defense station wants with them, maybe for cooking or maybe for fuel of some sort.

No, I haven’t seen FC yet. It makes more sense than my lubricant hypothosis I suspect.

It’s addressed in The Master’s column:

Cecil had some thoughts on the subject:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020531.html