The EssentiaList

by Catherine Haug

(photo, right, by C. Haug)

Back in your grandmothers’ (or great grandmothers’) time, lard was a common staple in everyone’s kitchen, used for tender & flakey pie crusts, melt-in-your-mouth cookies and cakes, frying, deep frying, a spread on toast (like butter), and more. But in more recent times, it has been maligned, along with all animal fats, as an artery-clogging nightmare. It does not deserve this reputation.

[I firmly believe it has gotten a bad rap because the powers-that-be want to push us into using fats/oils from vegetable sources so they could sell more seed. But that’s another topic altogether…]

See Rendering Lard in a Crockpot: The Process for instructions and photos (by Shelli R and Catherine, October 23-24, 2010)!

What is Lard?

It is the fat from hogs, in both its rendered and unrendered forms, and comes in three grades: (1)

• The highest grade of lard, known as leaf lard, comes from the visceral fat deposit surrounding the kidneys and inside the loin, and has the least ‘pork’ flavor.
• The next best comes from the fatback, the hard subcutaneous fat between the back skin and muscle of the pig.
• The third grade comes from the caul, the fat surrounding the digestive organs.

Lard is a great shortening for baked goods, especially pie crusts, and for frying. It can also be used to make soap, as grease (for some uses), and for a primitive oil lamp.

It can also be used to coat eggs (in the shell) after washing, as it provides a similar protection as the coating provided by the hen.

What’s Good about Lard?

Its superior flavor, especially leaf lard, and a relatively high smoke-point, makes it ideal for frying and deep-frying.

It has a favorable fat composition (40% saturated, 48% monounsaturated, 12% polyunsaturated) that is very similar to human body fat, and is considered easier for us to digest. It is very high in vitamin D, a nutrient much in the news these days for its health benefits, and one most of us are deficient in. (2)

Compare with Vegetable Shortenings

Coconut oil is made up of short-chain fatty acids that are important for health. But coconut oil melts at warmer room temperatures, so is not good for some baking uses such as pie crust. It is good for frying and deep-fat frying, and is a good fat for recipes that call for vegetable oil, if you melt it first.

Palm oil is a mostly-saturated type of vegetable shortening, that has not been chemically altered. It is very solid (hard) at room temperature, so is not easy to work with in baked goods and pastries, but it is good for frying. However, vital tropical rainforests are being decimated to plant palm oil trees.

Common vegetable shortening (Crisco, etc.) is chemically modified to make it solid at room temperature. As such, it is comprised of either

• trans fats (from partial-hydrogenation of the original vegetable oils); or
• interesterified fats (chemically removing the fatty acids from the triglyceride, hydrogenating some of them to be saturated, then reattaching them to the triglyceride).

Trans fats have been implicated in heart disease and other health issues, and must be listed on the label. Interesterified fats have been shown to be even more dangerous than trans fats, especially for sugar metabolism (diabetes, etc.), but are not required to be listed on the label. (4)

Commercially Processed Lard

When the bad news about trans fats reached mainstream media, grocery stores around the country stocked up on those 1-pound boxes of commercially-processed lard (Armour, etc.). This could certainly be used in a pinch, but note that it has been treated with bleach and deodorizers. To improve its shelf life, and to allow it to be kept without refrigeration, some of the fat has been hydrogenated, converting it not to trans-fats but to saturated fat, in a process related to interesterification (see above). This process also deactivates the vitamin D.

By far, the best lard is that which has been freshly rendered and stored properly (see below).

How to Render Lard

There are many websites that offer great descriptions of the method for rendering lard, so I won’t go into the details here. I can recommend these websites, with great photos:

• The Nourishing Gourmet: How to Render Lard
• Lehmans Country Life: Rendering Lard: A First Timers’ Guide
• Real Food Mama blog: How to Render Lard (in a crockpot)
• Livin’ High on the Hog: How I Rendered my own Lard (pdf file)

The first two blogs describe the stove-top and oven methods, and have great comments. The last two links: Real Food Mama blog or Livin’ High on the Hog pdf, are about the method using a crockpot: You put the fat into the crockpot with a little water (option al), cover the pot, turn it on, and wait until the fat is rendered. No spatters, burns, etc.. Then strain and pour it off into storage containers.

Shelli R and I tried the crockpot method, with great success; see Rendering Lard in a Crockpot: The Process for instructions and photos. For a printable version, see Rendering Lard in a Crockpot (pdf).

Storage & Shelf Life

(photo, left, by C. Haug)

After rendering and straining the fat, you will want to store it.

The main issue with lard (and all edible fats) is that they can go rancid from oxidation. So it’s very important to keep it away from light. It can pick up odors from other things, so it should be in a container with a good-fitting lid, or tightly wrapped in parchment (don’t use waxed paper while the lard is still warm), then stored in a cool, dark place, especially for long term. Wrap in freezer paper (see photo) for freezing.

Another consideration is to keep it away from mice, as they love lard! This is where glass jars with lids come in handy… (5)

Write the rendered date on the container, to help you keep track of which to use first.

Storage containers

Good storage containers include: a ceramic crock or wrapped in parchment paper. If you keep it in glass canning jars (with lid), put them in a refrigerator, cabinet or carboard box to protect from light.

I would not keep it in plastic (like yogurt containers or plastic wrap) because as a fat, it will leach fat-soluble toxins from the plastic.

To use parchment paper, line a bread loaf pan with the paper (like a mold), then pour in the liquid lard and let sit until cooled. Then fold the paper around the block. A butter mold could also be used (instead of a loaf pan).

If you plan to use it frequently (several times a week), and your kitchen stays cool (below 75º F), you could keep some in a crock with a lid for several weeks, or up to 4 months in ideal conditions (5,6). But if your kitchen gets above 75, store it in the refrigerator or other cool spot.

Lard cans are another option; however, the solder contains lead, so be careful and choose a can with a ceramic coating on the interior. Some have a chemical coating, but this is a type of plastic and could leach toxins into the lard.

Long term storage

It will keep in the refrigerator 9 – 10 months, and in the freezer for up to a year; after that, it could go rancid. (6) For freezer storage, I recommend wrapping pound blocks in parchment, and then in freezer paper, for easy stacking.

If your basement or root cellar stays cool during hot weather, it will keep similar to in a refrigerator, but do keep it away from light.

Clarify lard for reuse

In researching the crockpot method for rendering lard, I came across this great site that provides many good links on rendering lard and also for clarifying lard for reuse: Well Tell Me: Rendering Lard Info and Questions. The best of these is Grandpappy Info: How to Render Animal Fat, or Clarify Used Animal Fat. E-How: How to Clarify Fat and Bartelby: Cookery (scroll down to How to Clarify) detail a method using a potato.

Where To Obtain Lard for Rendering

The Farm Hands Map indicates the following farms that raise and sell pork, and may also sell lard for rendering:

• Farm to Market Pork, Inc
• Louden Riverside Farms and
• Manning Farm.

Other possibilities are meat processing businesses including (11):

• Frank’s Meats in Pablo, (406) 675-2550;
• Frey’s Meats and Custom Cutting in Columbia Falls, (406) 892-2226;
• Lower Valley Processing south of Kalispell;
• M & S Meats in Rollins;
• White’s Wholesale Meats in Ronan, (406) 676-0082.

For our rendering experiment, Shelli R. and I bought our unrendered lard (ground fat) at Farm to Market Pork, outside Kalispell. As of July 2010, their price is $1 per pound; minimum order is a 5-pound block, which will produce 2 – 3 pounds of rendered fat. [See Rendering Lard in a Crockpot: The Process for our process and photos!]

Sources

1. Wikipedia on ‘lard:’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lard
2. The Nourishing Gourmet: How to Render Lard
3. Lehmans Country Life: Rendering Lard: A First Timers’ Guide
4. Nutrition and Metabolism
5. Discuss Cooking: Discussion Forum on Lard Storage
6. Community Awareness Preparation: Discussion forum on Lard Storage
7. The New Resilient: Make Your Own Lard
8. Real Food Mama blog: How to Render Lard (in a crockpot)
9. Well Tell Me: Rendering Lard Info and Questions (great links & discussion)
10. Livin’ High on the Hog: How I Rendered my own Lard by healthybratt (pdf file)
11. Montana Meat Processing Companies

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 11th, 2010 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Food-Nutrition-Health, Shop Local. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.