Oh my god- I dearly love bacon in all shapes and forms but one heart attack and a several-year struggle to get my cholesterol in line keeps me away from it (that and a whole lot of other not so good for you things I used to live on). Now I use it as a once-in-a-while treat, and don't even think of saving the grease for anything.
Back when I did revolutionary war re-enacting, one of my buddies insisted on using bacon drippings to "oil" the outside and inside of his musket barrel- in the interest of "historical" (hysterical?) accuracy. I used to scold him for that inane trick but he didn't listen, his perpetually rusty gun not-withstanding. He just couldn't grasp the fact of its high salt content... (Brown Bess musket barrels are left bright- no browning or bluing, and they were hard enough to keep nice using good products.)
