Resurrecting Lard
You may know that there is no vegetable shortening in Italy, or at least there is none unless you go to a shop specializing in exotic foreign foods. We have olive oil in variety that would stun you. If I go to five supermarkets for some reason, I can see perhaps a hundred and twenty olive oils, most of them extra virgin. We have seed oils. And we have lard. I was not a million miles away from being a lard user when I arrivedf, because where I had my farm in West Virginia the local cooks used lard for their exquisite pies. You could see the difference and you could surely taste the difference. But we had been taught that lard was evil and would surely kill us. So a lot of the time I lit up a cigarette and used Crisco.
Now there has been published a very inetesting book called “Fat: an Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient; with Recipes.” The more I read about this book, the more determined I am to read it. I think fat is the most mystified food in the last century. We were told a thousand tales and most were not true in the end. I remember how traumatized our mothers were when article after article came out in newspapers and magazines telling them they were setting up a slow and terrible death for their husbands and children. By the time I learned to make biscuits, I was getting a pail of shortening from the pantry instead of a pail of lard.
Slate Magazine had published an article about lard and its re-entry into the American kitchen. It never left the Italian kitchen. The British cooks with whom I talk know much more about lard, types of lard, when to use which, suet and where to buy vegetable lard (shortening) when the vegetarian daughter-in-law is coming over.
It really behooves us all to understand the mistakes we are making and why we have been maneuvered into making them. It’s no guarantee that we won’t be finagled again on a different food, but understanding fat is pretty important. There are very few things one makes in the kitchen in which fat does not figure. There are very few natural foods that are at their best with absolutely no fats.
There have recently been published — within the last three or four years, I mean — lots of books that are really about food, not just about cooking or recipes. I think that is a very good sign of the maturation of the eating public and I hope it will mean fewer and fewer tricky substitutes and cheap fastfood solutions in future. Really, let’s eat and eat well!
I know there must be readers who hold back from some obvious thoughts when I post about roasting potatoes in duck fat, but duck fat is no more guilty of murder than butter and may be slightly better for you. In my ideal world, one would eat one potato’s worth roasted in duck fat than a half a plateful cooked in corn oil!
I used to be on the “no fat” bandwagon and cooked with manufactured fats, when I used fat at all. But, recently I tried making a pie with strutto and the crust was absolutely amazing – light, airy and tasty! Since coming here though, I’ve moved back to the more natural ingredients. I’m not afraid to use butter and lard. Fats, despite their bad press, are really an integral part of our diet. It’s just that we need to watch how much fat we eat. Like you said, let’s eat and eat well.
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For those of us who won’t cook with pig fat (or products) and who need to care whether a dairy product is used when one wishes to use a meat product, Crisco was a gift from heaven.
I use olive oil rather than butter in many cakes- it means my cakes may be pareve rather than dairy. I also use applesauce rather than butter in others. But I find it hard to believe that here in Germany, the land of the pig eaters, I can get vegetable solid shortening and there, in Italy, the land of plenty, you cannot. It did take me more than two years to discover what it was called here, though.
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Mary, I was once on a no fat diet for a YEAR. I put hot peppers in and on everything.
Good reminder of dietary restrictions. I was reading about the US embassies offering hotdogs for the Fourth, and I reckoned that if they used Kosher, the Hindus couldn’t eat them, so it seemed a bad idea.
I can buy real Crisco at a specialty shop in Rome and probably at Vivi in Florence, but I don’t. I do like butter cakes, but they are not as light and you cannot do a pure white one with butter. I have has poor luck substituting measure for measure oil for shortening. Maybe if I weighed it?
There is no way to make good Mexican beans without using lard–at all. So, I keep using it. Glad to know that I haven’t really destroyed my and my loved ones.
Hmmmm, I have to admit I have only made them with oil, so I probably have never made them good. I shall look up a recipe and make them when I am thin again.
Meantime, I have been making homemade corn tortillas. What bliss! Who knew plain tortillas could be so good? And they are whole grain and vegan.
I don’t think you can sub olive oil for shortening- I sub it for butter. I think the only sub for lard (solid fat) is another solid fat. Here in Germany, a veg solid fat is Palmin.
Pig is tasty, so all say, but for every taste there is another taste to substitute. My German neighbors revel in pork, while I adore spice. I don’t think my cooking has suffered for lack of lard.
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Well, I do sub if the shortening was to be melted. Otherwise it seems not to blend correctly, with flour getting too oil soaked.
I am very pleased to learn all these things from this discussion.