The Lard Post

I threatened to write this post long ago, but there's no time like the present to do it!


Lard is the fat that comes from a pig, and pigs are big animals. There's no getting around that fact. I'm sure, back in the day when people actually raised their animals from life to death, making lard was much more of a chore than it is now. For some, they look back to all of that work and ask:

Why choose to make lard when you can actually buy it from the grocery store right beside the shortening?
As our food becomes more factory-oriented, it becomes less pure. Shortening is a chemically modified fat, whether or not it has trans-fats, and the lard you get from the store is hydrogenated to improve its shelf life. You also don't know where the pigs came from, what they ate, and how they lived, which are all things to take into account when you're talking about the health of your fat. The quality of life an animal has when it is living shows up in all of its products, but especially in its fat. That's why I attempt to buy pure fat when I go to make lard. I usually buy Eden Naturals pork fat from a farmer's market.

Making your lard is also pretty cheap. This is about ten pounds worth of fat.

This leads to another question:

Why choose lard, or another traditional fat, when shortening is available at the store?
A lot of people might wonder this when they haven't heard of Nourishing Traditions, the Weston A. Price Foundation, or other sources of information that challenge commonly held pseudo-nutritional beliefs. Here's a little bit of information: the diets of your great-grandparents were much healthier than ours today, not just because they didn't eat as many pesticides and chemicals. They ate food full of lard, tallow, butter, and coconut oil. The modern industrial diet today includes more monosaturated fats, such as corn oil, rapeseed (canola) oil, and soybean oil. These are some of the most common oils in the modern U.S. diet, and each has its issues: corn oil can come from GMOs and can cause bone density loss, canola oil comes from a toxic plant and goes through many chemical processes to make it fit for human consumption. (It's also registered by the EPA as a pesticide). The last one is common as an ingredient in processed foods. Soybean oil has all the bad characteristics of soy: it's difficult for many to digest, it causes a spike in estrogen production (in both males and females), and it can be a factor in cancer or IBS. Basically, your best bets for fat are to try to eat like your great-grandparents. That's where making lard comes in.

The Process:

So far, I've tried three different ways of making lard: on the stove, in the oven, and in the crock pot. The crock pot batch was the last, so that's the one recording first.

1. First, it really helps to have some equipment:
   
   
   Last time I made lard, I used just a cleaver to cut up the fat. This time, the food processor saved my hand, even though I still had to chop up the larger slabs of fat.
   
2. Put all the fat into the crock pot on low heat, and let it cook for a really long time: 8-12 hours (depending on how hot your food processor is). What you're looking for is the fat to leach out of the structure of the cells and leave behind cracklings. You'll also smell it--a sweet, cloying pork smell. It's not the greatest, and it seems to be worse in the crock pot than on the stove or in the oven.
   
3. Once your fat is rendered, you've got to remove the cracklings from the lard. It's easiest to do this by first dipping out the lard that you can, and straining it through a piece a clean rag. I've found that cheesecloth isn't fine enough and lets some sediment through, so I like to use a piece of old sheeting. (I also like that I can throw it away afterward, guilt-free.)
   
4. Many folks will be content with packaging up the lard now, but I take one more step. There are still some protein fibers floating around in the lard, so I like to clarify it. All that means is that I add some water to the liquid lard--usually about 2 cups--and stir it around. I then put it in the fridge to harden. The water will pull the proteins to the bottom of the fat, and what's on top will better quality.
   
5. If you don't feel like going through the last step, package up the lard into the containers you wish to use, and refrigerate or freeze. If you did do step four, take it out of the fridge, cut it up into smaller chunks, trying to leave out the protein bits. Usually, when you're down to half a container, the big lard "chunk" will come out of the water on its own; you can then scrape off the proteins on the bottom.
   
6. I like to divide my lard into the right portions for biscuits, since that's what I use it for most often. I also freeze lard, since it will keep in the refrigerator for three months and in the freezer for over a year.

On the Stove:

Put the lard from the food processor in a large stock pot along with 1-2 cups of water. The water keeps the lard from burning or catching on fire. Just like the crock pot method, put the lard on the lowest heat, cover, and let cook for 8-12 hours.

In the Oven:
Put the lard on a rimmed cookie sheet or oven-proof pan. Warm the oven to 250-275 degrees and put the fat into the oven.  Let render for 3-6 hours, checking every thirty minutes or so to pour off the already rendered lard.

So, which method do I like the best? After doing the crock pot and stove methods and finishing with the oven method, I think the oven method will be my go-to one from now on. It smells less, it seems like it's less clean-up, and the whole process seems more contained.

Of course, if this sounds like too much work you can do what my sister does: she buys lard and tallow (among other things) from US Wellness Meats.

Food Philosophy

When I start to talk food with the average Joe/Josephine, he/she starts to back away. I can see the wheels turning: Whoa Nelly!

But even the average Joe has heard enough information nowadays to become an informed consumer. Local ways of eating are all around us. In fact, where I live, we are singularly blessed to have 1) legal raw milk, and 2) a community that does their part to support local agriculture and businesses. And I am incredibly blessed to have my own source for goat's milk, cheese, pastured organic eggs, grass-fed ground beef, and (sometimes) chicken in the same farmer. I love my farmer. She's incredibly good to my family.

I get on this kick of telling others about it every blue moon--usually when I haven't talked about it in a while. Like I said, when I start talking food and local and real fat, people start getting a little scared. Or offended? Something.

It's not a matter of being better. It's not even a matter of loving to cook, which I do. In fact, I'd love to cook even if I weren't a crazy health food fanatic (in a very traditional way) trying to once again convince my daddy to try raw milk. (Really, we just let it slide. At least he drinks it in his coffee.)

I also recognize the need for convenience in food, especially since I teach and go to school and have a busy life. I've consumed waaayyy too much McDonald's mocha to say too much about it. But the principle of the matter remains the same: America's food problems stem from the over-industrialization of its food sources. Fake food does not a healthy population make.

So, what do I do, on a consistent basis, to make my family a healthier and happier group?

Meat:

• When Mama heard about Mad Cow Disease a couple of years ago, it scared her away from beef. Now we mostly use ground beef from my local farmer. We know what these cows were fed, in fact, I even visited them at the farm. I'm starting to get closer to my food.
  
• Local sausage: There are several meat processors in our area that do a lot of processing for local hunters and farms. One makes sausage which our local grocery store sells, and on the package it advertises "No MSG". I don't know about the quality of the pork, but at least I know it doesn't have MSG.
• Chicken: Our egg lady is out to do some serious good. She not only provides almost my entire family with eggs, but every once in a while she will process birds specifically for her customers. I'm really thankful; it makes it easy to get clean (soy-free) meat. I'm still experimenting to get a true grasp of cooking these birds perfectly, but high-heat roasting in a covered dish really works well. (My Thanksgiving turkey also came from her last year!)
  
• Venison: I'm excited about this one! Our next-door neighbor loves to hunt for the sport, but doesn't want to see the meat go to waste. It looks like we'll get our venison without being hunters ourselves; we'll just pay the processing fee and have plenty of natural meat for cheap. (And if any body knows what to do with it, I'd be mighty thankful for some recipes!)
• Eggs: of course. Why else would I call my farmer my egg lady? :)
  

Fat:

• LARD: I'm about to make it again--perhaps I'll record the process this time? It's very easy, and even easier when you chop it in the food processor, and make it in the crock pot! I think I saw this recommended somewhere; I don't remember. A friend of mine tried it and says it worked like a charm. What I do know is this: It makes wonderful fried anything, biscuits, and pie crust. I get my fat from Eden Naturals Pork.
• Butter: Right now is the time to stock up on Organic Valley's cultured butter: it's a brand/ style that Sally Fallon mentions in Nourishing Traditions. I'm waiting for it to go on sale at my awesome local grocery chain, which really does a good job on the organic and local side of things.
• Animal Fats: When we buy bacon, we usually buy the expensive kind: organic or natural, without nitrates. We save the fat, and use it for all kinds of things: vegetables, morning fried eggs, onions--whatever. We probably have too much in our fridge right now, but that's okay by me.
  
• Olive Oil: organic, extra-virgin is our standard. I'd like to get some less flavorful oil for other situations, but right now this is what we have and use.
  
• Coconut Oil: can too much be said about this wonderful stuff? What else can you cook with, and also use as the best-ever moisturizer? It's not only amazingly good for you, but it also is antiviral and antibacterial.
  
• Peanut Oil: because it's natural, it fries well, and it's mild, we also keep this on hand.
  

Dairy:

• I've probably said enough about this already, but here goes: local, grass-fed goat or cow's milk. Usually cow's milk is what we get.
  
• Raw cheese (most of the time)
• I should buy local ricotta, but I don't usually.
  
• Yogurt. I should make it at home, but I've not done it in a while. We do (usually) buy organic, usually Stoneyfield Farm.
  

Breads:

• I'm kinda off the freshly ground whole wheat bread thing. I still love the taste, but I'm afraid it's not as good for you as I originally thought. I usually buy Ezekiel Bread, which my dad won't touch. (He eats that awful white wheat stuff from the store--bleck. Of course, he says the same thing about my Ezekiel bread.)
  
• Any pastries, biscuits, cookies, or quick breads coming from my kitchen usually end up being any where from 50-100% freshly ground soft white flour. It's still better for you than plain ole' bleached white!

Sweets:

• My daddy doesn't really care about this, but his apple juice is organic. So is the sugar he puts in his coffee. And most of his baked goods (when he gets them from our kitchen) have organic and/or local ingredients in them. We also keep sort-of local raw honey, sucanant, and stevia on hand.
  

Fruits and Veggies:

• We tend to stick to this article on what to buy organic in the grocery store: onions, lettuce, carrots, apples, grape tomatoes. We don't always buy peaches an other fruits organic, though we should.
  

I think this post is long enough, but I want to add one more thing: this didn't happen overnight, and the process is still continuing. I think my next big purchase I'll make (other than my recent birthday present to myself--more on that later) is going to be a dehydrator. You need one if you want to make crispy nuts, sprouted flour, and certain soaked grains the right way. And I do.