The other day I made a jar of chicken 'schmaltz' (rendered fat) for use in future cooking, and I got to thinking about the off-beat items that 'live' in refrigerators around the USA.  And I would bet that my unusual items are NOT the most unusual of the lot!   Lots of those 'iceboxes' contain jars of pickled herring, not just those of Scandinavian-Americans, and Jewish people.  My Old Man refers to the stuff as "sill", which is just the Swedish word for herring.  And  something that amuses me is that the Finnish word for herring is "silli" and yes, it is pronounced "silly".  (An exchange student from Finland told me that.) \

And I would imagine the refrigerators of American Jewish persons, and folks with Hungarian ancestry, would also have "schmaltz."   What's amusing about that item is its name and the way, in musical milieus,  that  one sometimes hears "Once more, with SCHMALTZ!"  Used that way, it means "Sing (or play) it again, but with MORE sentiment!"  One day very soon, I'm going to make chicken paprikash (Hungarian-style), and yes, ma'am, I'm going to do it with schmaltz.

Last oddment is my "grease" jar.  That's my little pot of bacon drips.  One used to be able to buy a special container with "GREASE" printed on it, to put near the cookstove and into which to put the 'drips' that come about when one fries bacon.  I haven't seen such a container for years (maybe even decades).  I feel just a little subversive, having such a jar, because of all the advice from well-meaning nutritionists in print these days.

I'm German and Irish and keep schmaltz in the fridge when I can make it. I also keep bacon grease in there for cooking There are a lot of things I use it for instead of generic oil.