“I can still memory - taste the fresh buttermilk pancakes and hot buttermilk biscuits - both made with lard! - that were cooked on the top, or in the oven, of that ancient iron stove.
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No food is more calorically dense than animal fat. Sugar contains 108 calories per ounce. In contrast, lard provides 245 calories per ounce. Lard is also a phenomenal source of vitamin D. One ounce of lard contains 2,000 IU’s of this fat soluble micro-nutrient, along with the fatty acid cofactors that make it optimally bioavailable. Vitamin D (actually a pro-hormone) is critical in the maintenance of healthy teeth and bones; immune, brain, and nervous system health; insulin regulation; lung and heart health; and influences anti-cancer genetic expression. Our bodies make vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, but during the winter months when days are short and we bundle up, having a dietary source for this mood improving substance is highly advantageous. Put simply, lard from pasture-raised pigs may be the greatest health food you can add to your diet.
I know, right? For sixty years the great artifices of our culture have been screaming at us, “Don’t eat that! You’ll die of a heart attack at 30!” Once again, rather than outsource our decisions on nutrition to heavily lobbied bureaucrats and cliquish physicians, we must take the responsibility to educate ourselves. Science is never settled. Any time someone uses the word “consensus” in the same word with “scientific” they are using neural linguistic programming to prevent you from examining the evidence. Research that is funded by special interests will support the conclusion desired by the outfit paying the bills, every time. This is how lard became verboten.
The poster-shill for this fraud was a quack named Ancel Keys. In the 1960’s this “doctor” cherry picked diet versus heart disease rate data from 27 countries to find 7 where a correlation could be found between saturated fat consumption and coronary fatalities. He did this at the behest of the sugar lobby, as detail in this article in the New York Times. In broad strokes, his “research” landed him and his “lipid hypothesis” on the cover of Time magazine, influenced federal nutrition policy (effecting school lunch menus, military rations, propagandistic illuminati food pyramids, etc.) and ushered in an era during which cancer rates (particularly amongst the young) have spiked, obesity is out of control, and America out spends every nation on health care, but is ranked worse in over all health in the developed world. But, rather than (taking the advice of Paul Wheaton, here) spending our time being angry at bad guys, lets do something good, and share it with the world! Let’s render some lard, and learn how to get great gobs of it into our diet.
When processing a pig you will find two distinct types of fat. On the outside, just under the skin, you will find the back fat. This fat is critical for adding moisture to sausage made from lean meats (don’t worry, we’ll get to that in future posts…). On a heritage lard hog, there is a lot of it.
It is worthwhile to cube the portion of this fat you intend to render for lard while you are butchering your hog. Any fatty trimmings can be cut in half inch pieces, bagged and frozen. The other type of fat you will find on your hog is the leaf lard. This is the fat that lines the abdominal cavity. Its texture is more crumbly than the outside back fat. This stuff is the finest pastry ingredient available. The catch, however, is that it is not available. Finding rendered leaf lard for pastry applications is nearly impossible. Once again, if you want the finest results, you must do what most are unwilling to do. Cube this fat and keep it separate from the back fat.
After the hard work of processing your hog is complete and the cuts you intend to turn into bacon, ham, and whatnot are curing, its time to transform this fat into lard and thus move it from the freezer to the pantry. Because the fat is rendered for hours at about 250F is can be stored in sterile mason jars, at room temperature for a very long time. The next step is to grind the frozen fat cubes through a fine plate.
I grind directly into an electric roasting pan, but a crock-pot set on low works just as well. The volume of the ground fat will reduce significantly, so feel free to mound it up. If you do not own a crock-pot, or roasting pan, reflect on your life choices and determine where you lost your way. Between now and when you acquire one you can render lard in a pot, on the stove, but you will want to add enough water to cover the bottom of the pot so you don’t oxidize (brown) the fat, at the beginning of the render. When I render in the roasting pan, I set the temperature at 250F, and place the lid on it.
Over the course of the day, the lipids (fat) sweat out of the fat cells. The solid portion of the grind shrinks and liquid lard fills the pan. When no more fat appears to be rendering out of the grind its time to can you lard. Wash and sterilize more quart jars than you think you will need. If your 10-quart crock-pot is half full of liquid lard, prep 6 jars. For this sterilization I like to place the clean jars in a 225F oven for 20 minutes. Heating them will also eliminate heat stress fracturing of the glass when you add the hot fat. Boil some water, and pour it over the jar lids to soften the seals. Because we wont be water bath or pressure canning these jars, heating the lids is extra important! Strain the render, through a metal sieve, into a clean pitcher. If using a glass one, pre-heat it in the oven, too. Don’t forget your hot pad, when handling it! Pour the hot lard into the jars, using a clean canning funnel. Leave ½ inch headspace. Wipe the rims, and secure the lids with rings, finger tight. The cooling lard with make a seal. Let the jars cool where you filled them until the lard becomes opaque. Store them in a cool dark place.
But wait, there’s more! There is still valuable fat in that stuff you strained out of your slow cooker. Dump the strainings into a large pot, and place this on a low burner on the stovetop. Continue to render this until the solids are golden brown. Store this strained fat as “frying lard”. Its not the creamy white stuff you got out of the primary render, but it will make fried chicken or French fries that will blow your mind! The remaining bits of browned solids (1/20th of the original volume) are great dog treats or chicken feed and, with a pinch of salt, are surprisingly tasty. If you think of some fun culinary application for these, leave a comment below!
Do this whole process once for your back fat, and once for your leaf lard. Label the back fat render as lard, and the leaf lard as pastry lard. They have different applications, as will be detailed in future Radical Gastronomy posts.
Try adding good quality lard into your diet. Read the new thinking concerning animal fat and health. Replace cooking oils with lard. Heck, you may start to feel better, think clearer, and be a happier person!
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