Nooooo! Bad Snakepony! That’s mine!

@Phantom Rider  
Stop having bacon hair then! :D

Sunset: Ow, quit chewing on my hair!

@Background Pony #073A
 
huh, didn’t know that.
 
@Boulder318
 
that and rapeseed oil is super cheap to produce industrially.

Don’t have knowledge on allergy problems so did some looking and found this…  
https://www.verywellhealth.com/allergies-to-cooking-oils-82883  
Most food outlets here in Australia are using canola now, I guess for this reason.

@Background Pony #073A  
We use canola oil at my store.

@redweasel  
Ah, thanks.
 
I figured that was part of it, though, due to the increasing prevalence of peanut allergy in the US, not as many restaurants use peanut oil as once did. Highly purified soybean oil from some of the new genetically modified soybean cultivars can go up to the same temperatures as peanut oil, and we are told fewer people are allergic.
 
And until around 1990 the McDonald’s fast food chain in the US used beef tallow in the deep fryers because it imparted a more savory flavor to fried potatoes. Highly purified beef tallow supposedly has a smoke point of 250 C., though this varies, and different sources may list somewhat different figures, and it will really depend on how pure the beef tallow actually is and what other substances are present.
 
Anyway. At least some bacon sold in the US is cured with a nitrite solution, and traditionally pork was cured by a process involving a coating of a mixture of molasses, salt, and saltpeter–potassium nitrate, a strong oxidizing agent. Nitrites and nitrates are strong oxidizing agents generally, and I made a guess that traces of nitrites might at high temperatures cause the cooking oil to break down. As you know, the plant lipids start out as triglyceride esters, and the progression as the oil breaks down over time is ester -> free fatty acids -> long-chain aldehydes (long-chain aldehydes are responsible for the “unappetizing stale fried food” odor we associate with broken-down deep fryer oil and anything cooked in it), and if it went on long enough you might even see long-chain alcohols beginning to form.
 
Strong alkali also breaks down the triglyceride esters, though they are reducing agents and nucleophiles rather than oxidizing agents, which are electrophilic by nature, and with strong alkali the process usually goes just a little past the stage of creating free fatty acids by converting the free fatty acids into alkaline fatty acid salts, i.e., soap. And this is how soap and shampoo are made–converted from old deep fryer oil with a good strong alkali like potassium hydroxide–though since the end of the Second World War many commercial bath soaps and shampoos have been introduced that contain synthetic detergents instead, in part due to the US government seizing and distributing German patents on various chemical processes during the war, but–I’m rambling here.

@Background Pony #63B0  
@redweasel  
I work in a kitchen and this thread is my favorite.

@Background Pony #63B0
 
deep fryers are amazing for a lot of things, bacon, potatoes, chicken, pakoras, apples, mushrooms, peppers, but unfortunately you have to dump like a gallon of oil into them, then wait long enough for it to heat up. so if you’re a single household cooking for two, it puts you at a disadvantage to a restaurant that’ll serve hundreds that day.
 
fyi if you look at the smoke point of various fats you can see that lard (which is usually pig fat) has a smoke point of 182C, while refined peanut oil (what they use in deep fryers) has a smoke point of 232C. so that’s why bacon grease ruins the fryer oil, because it’s literally burning darker. peanut oil will oxidize the same way, but it’s much more stable, whereas bacon grease is just like “1, 2, oh great now the room’s filling with oil smoke.”
 
also bacon leaves carbonized meat bits in the bacon grease unless it’s refined, and that stuff also makes fryer oil go bad faster.

@Badumsquish  
Not that guy, but–in many restaurants bacon is cooked in bulk, in ovens, on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Then when it is needed it can be warmed up quickly–in a microwave, on the griddle, or in the deep fryer.
 
The deep fryer is fastest and gives the finished product a delicate, crumbly-crispy texture like nothing else, which is absolutely perfect for BLT sandwiches or breakfast platters. But don’t let the boss see you do it. Apparently even a trace of bacon grease getting into deep fryer oil makes the deep fryer oil go bad a lot faster. Over time, due to the heat and other factors, the deep fryer oil oxidizes, gets dark, and has to be changed out for fresh, which is expensive. There is something about bacon grease, some chemical it contains, that makes all this happen much faster.
 
Bacon grease also makes the deep fryer, and things cooked in it afterwards, no longer kosher or haram, though that may be less of a concern to the boss, depending on where you live and the restaurant’s usual clientele.

@redweasel  
Try water-crisping it, then, where you just cover the bacon with water in the pan, bring it to a boil, lower to medium and simmer away the water, then drop it to medium-low and brown it. It makes them really crispy on the outside but really tender in the middle :D

@redweasel  
You like pig butts and you cannot lie?

@Lynx318
 
I would be more upset, but I’ve grown an irrational love for pig butts from watching people play don’t starve together.

@redweasel  
You not gonna like this….  

@Badumsquish
 
well, I suppose salt and vinegar would make a difference. I thought brine was just saturated salty solution, not acidic.
 
at any rate it’s not all that different a flavor. like I said, as far as I can tell, bacon just tastes like sliced ham and lard. (and lard can be f-in delicious, so that’s not an insult, just an observation.)

@redweasel  
No, just the belly or the back. Pretty much all ham is salted, but only bacon is actually cured in brine so it has a different flavor; compare french fries with salt to french fries with salt and vinegar :D

@Badumsquish
 
everyone says they come from different parts, but never what part it is that bacon comes from. is it embarassing? it’s the butt, isn’t it.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen ham that wasn’t salted, so I really dunno. far as I can tell, bacon tastes like ham and lard.

@redweasel  
Bacon is prepared differently than other cuts of ham. Bacon comes from different parts of the animal and is cured in brine, so even if you cook them exactly the same the bacon will taste different :D

@redweasel  
Toasted ham, cheese and lettuce sandwiches using a Breville sandwich toaster is good to me.

@Lynx318
 
I certainly don’t eat ham cold. am I the only one who actually roasts ham? I don’t know which part of the pig is which, either. it’s meat, versus other meat far as I can tell.
 
but yeah, you’re probably right. I just don’t really like bacon enough to learn all that stuff.

@redweasel  
Ham is a different part of the pig I think and is eaten cold. Bacon hot is just a whole different flavour. Was just making a possibly helpful reply.

@Lynx318
 
how is that not smoked ham?
 

@redweasel  
I assume USA has same, trimmed bacon rashers are available hear in Oz.  

@Badumsquish
 
heck I don’t even know where a butcher’s shop is. can’t I just eat smoked ham? it’s the same thing, without the mess!