December is the month for suet.

A key ingredient in both Yorkshire pudding and mincemeat, this is the one time of year this beef fat gets its deserved due.

In the halcyon days of McDonald's, the French fries were cooked in beef fat. 4505 Meats' stand at the Ferry Building (Thursday and Saturday) takes up where the chain left off, cooking sweet potato fries in tallow until golden-brown, then topping them with ground- beef and pork chili and sliced scallions ($8 per pound).

At Berkeley's Local Butcher Shop, no part of the animal is wasted. The butchers fry potato slices in surplus beef fat, and the resulting chips are crunchy, salty and intensely savory ($2.25 per bag). The shop also sells jars of rendered fat ($20 for 32 ounces; $10 for 16 ounces).

You can also buy suet at The Fatted Calf ($11 per pound) and Avedano's ($2 per pound). Use it for popovers, for plum pudding or to fry potatoes (or potato latkes).

And if you should get hooked on this glorious grease? We'd have no beef with that.