Cream of Wheat grease jar

Googling trying to ID this and found a couple that say it is a Cream of Wheat rare light faced grease jar. Before I list it I would like a few thoughts. Or maybe someone can find the actual info. I am still searching. 5 1/2" tall and 5 1/2" wide. Thanks!

 

Why would Cream of Wheat which is a breakfast cereal, make a grease jar?
Just asking, I don't see the connection.

 

Bacon grease?

 

I was wondering that, too.

 

Part of a kitchen set - like above. Those aluminum kitchen canisters that were so popular came with a grease jar. If you never had one, it sat on your stove to hold bacon grease, which you'd use to make lots of other things you wouldn't use your good, clean Crisco for.

 

Forgot to say that it's very cool @wildrose !

Fits right in with these Days Of Paleo, right?

Oh yeah, that reminds me - somebody should definitely update them for that market!

 

The shape of the one you found looks like the cookie jar.

Seem to be lots of variants on the type. Do chefs really wear aprons with blue stripes?

 

There is nothing better than home fries cooked in bacon grease in a cast iron skillet.

My Mama didn't have one that was specially made to hold grease, she used a candy tin that had a blue & white design. It was stored in the pantry not on the stove.

 

You'd never use Crisco for that!

Ours - sat on her Tappan.


Here's a fancy one with strainer!

 

Post #2, the one you found right away, looks to me like the cookie jar from the set, not like the squat grease jar wildrose posted.

 

That's what bird feeder makers call it too. Some have a place for it on one end.

My dad's father made bacon & eggs every morning. He just accumulated the bacon grease in the frying pan & fried his eggs in it. Don't know what he did when the pan got too full. He would put the eggshells on a burner of the electric stove, very low heat, to dry them out. Then he put them out for the birds.

 

Yes, I know what a grease jar is. We had one by the stove, growing up,
we used it all the time.
Fried fish filets, eggs, can't recall what else, but bacon grease was the first thing into the fry pan.

Also salt was the first thing into the pot of water.


I just do not get the connection between bacon grease and cream of wheat.

 

Given that the Cream of Wheat boxes had this guy on them, what do the ones in white face have to do with it?

 

I agree, @clutteredcloset49

I have no idea if this was ever a bona-fide grease can.

I do remember kitchen canister sets from that era included at least flour, sugar, tea and coffee, but there were also lines that included S&Ps and WOW! sets like this all-inclusive Kromex set on ebay

I certainly didn't live in that world, but obviously some did!



Grease cans were so common to a certain era, maybe the average housewife would be stoked to find a cute set in porcelain(?) that included a grease can, if manufacturers advertised it that way.

There's a whole other aspect to Cream of Wheat, namely that it was originally advertised with a black character, but by the looks of these canisters the marketing was specically targeted to a much different market, namely white women who loved and demanded grease cans!

 

I've learned that when I find a lot of inconsistencies is some line of reasoning, it's because something about my assumptions is wrong.

The only reason we're connecting any of these to Cream of Wheat is because wildrose reported that she had found some described that way. We're calling it a grease jar for the same reason. These days it takes only one person to put up a bit of incorrect information for it to quickly spread all over the place, so it looks like accepted truth.

Do we actually know either of these things is true? Plus the bit about its being the rare light faced version? Were these promotional items for CoW? Not very good ones; they don't much evoke their trademarked figure on the box. Did a commercial pottery license the image & then alter it out of recognition?

Even if CoW had something to do with the production of these, you would think they would all, no matter the color of the face, retain the red bowtie, as the boxes did when they were updated. If the light faced version is rare, where are the presumably more common dark faced versions?

As for the 'grease jar', it doesn't look well suited to that purpose at all. I don't have any experience with them, but would think you have to be able to heat them to reliquify the fats & be able to pour from them? You would also want to make it difficult to spill. With its wide mouth & lid that just sits on top, I can see a real possibility of mishaps with the posted one. It looks to me more like a butter keeper from when people didn't always have their butter in neat, squared off bars.

Conclusion: Fake news. Someone on eBay or wherever fabricated a description because they dimly remembered a figure with a chef's toque on the CoW box they hadn't really looked at since they were a kid. It's quite possible the original source expressed their ideas tentatively while, with the next person to take them up, they became a certainty.

 

My mother used a tin can that perhaps soup came in. It was stored in the refrigerator and was used to fry the crispiest fried mackeral in town! I have never been able to duplicate it.......crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Delish!