'Try lard, the comeback fat, in baked goods and salad dressings'

[AdamSmith]

From today's Raleigh newspaper.

Try lard, the comeback fat, in baked goods and salad dressings

By Sylvia Carter

Correspondent

January 21, 2014 Updated 10 hours ago

The News & Observer

Croquetas fried in lard, garbanzo beans and pork made with paprika-flavored lard, guava pie and mantecaditos cookies made with lard are on the menu at the Old Havana Sandwich Shop in Durham. CHRIS SEWARD — cseward@newsobserver.com

When Roberto Copa Matos was growing up in Ranchuelo, a small town in central Cuba, he went with his grandmother on weekends to the bakery where she worked. He remembers peering into “big tubs of lard, white as snow.” Though the little boy had never seen snow, he knew it would be like that; he had seen photographs.

Later, trained as a biochemist, Copa Matos, now 42, understood that many fats break down or “denature” at a high heat, but that lard can best take the heat. So he has put it in his kitchen at his popular Old Havana Sandwich Grill in Durham, where a warning on the menu beneath the irresistible, part-lard cookies reads “not vegetarian.” At the restaurant, he sells quart jars of the pure lard he renders.

“I would prefer to eat lard, knowing the source of it, than oil that I don’t know the source of,” Copa Matos said.

This creamy lard is light years away from the blocks of additive-laden commercial lard found in grocery stores. Copa Matos renders lard from the fat of pigs raised on pasture and acorns at Green Button Farm in Bahama in northern Durham County, and Parker Family Farms, located in Hurdle Mills in northern Orange County.

A few generations ago, everybody cooked with lard from pigs raised the old-fashioned way: foraging for acorns, hickory nuts, wild native persimmons, wild blackberries, wild plums, clover and lespedeza. These swine – from venerable old breeds such as Gloucester Old Spots, Berkshires, Tamworths and Large Blacks with large ears like aps to keep out the mud – lived high on the hog, as the saying goes. They rooted for tree roots and made wallows, delightful to pigs, for cooling off in on hot summer days. The sows arranged nests of vegetation for birthing when they were ready to farrow.

When folks went over to hydrogenated fats and “synthetic” oils, it was a “cultural disconnect,” said Asher Wright, the manager of Rock House Farm, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Morganton.

Along with an increasing number of small farmers in North Carolina and across the country, Rock House, in Burke County, is raising pigs outdoors instead of in connement, supplementing pasture and trees with such feed as grain and molasses. Meat from these pigs tastes different. And once again, besides pork, such pigs provide lard that, it now turns out, is rich with health benets, said Tara Wind, a registered dietitian at Wake Med Raleigh.

“A lot of the rise in animal fats is from consumers becoming more educated,” said Wind. Farmer’s markets helped people learn to eat better, she added.

“For so long, people bought in the supermarket, and now they know that so much is synthetic and we’re putting that in our bodies.” Supermarket lard is usually hydrogenated, she pointed out, which makes it more like the synthetic hydrogenated fats. Wind favors eating fat “from animals that were raised on what they’re supposed to be eating,” she said. “The fat in an animal is from an animal’s diet,” and, she said, fat from pigs allowed to forage is higher in omega-3. A grain-fed or feedlot animal, Wind said, “is not as nutritious,” because they are not eating their natural diet.

Wind advocates balance. “You also need olive oil and coconut oil,” she said. “Don’t swap out other fats for lard 100 per cent.” (Olive oil does break down at a lower temperature, so it is best for dressing salads or as a grace note to a cooked dish.) Lard is about 45 per cent monounsaturated fat – the more healthful kind – and butter is only about 23 per cent, she said.

For decades, the trend was toward pigs so lean they gave little lard to render. Shelf-stable, hydrogenated shortenings, which we now know are saturated fats, took lard’s place in pie crusts and biscuits and in the handed-down cast-iron skillets where chicken and sh were fried. For decades, health-conscious cooks shunned lard. Now, it’s back.

“Lard is very high in monounsaturated fat,” points out Shirley Corriher, the Atlanta cooking teacher who used to troubleshoot for Julia Child as well as big food companies. “It has been given a bum rap.”

Corriher, who was a research biochemist for Vanderbilt Medical School, is the author of the books “Cookwise” and “Bakewise,” as well as works in scientic journals. In Georgia, Corriher’s grandmother fried chicken in lard, and one version of her beloved, moist “Touch of Grace” biscuits calls for smearing a touch of lard or bacon grease atop each biscuit.

The Paleo or “primal” diet that has steadily gained adherents in recent years has been a factor in the lard comeback. Abby Mulchi, a veterinarian in George Hildebrand, near Morganton, uses lard in curries and to saute the meat they use in that diet. “We don’t use store-bought lard,” Mulchi said. “We know Rock House lard is high in omega-3 fatty acids,” considered benecial for keeping cholesterol low.

Almost every night, Mulchi makes a bacon-fat vinaigrette for salad, and, she said, “We cook our eggs in bacon fat or lard, and we’ll do fatback, too. My husband puts any excess lard over his eggs in the morning and it helps sustain him and give him really good energy.” Wind, the dietitian, cautioned that if you are using bacon that isn’t from grass-fed animals, unlike Mulchi’s bacon, saving the grease is not a great idea.

“Lard is more monounsaturated than saturated,” said Linda Joyce Forristal, a professor in the tourism and hospitality department at Drexel University in Philadelphia, who started Lard Lovers, a band nearly 500 strong of those who celebrate lard, about ve years ago. Forristal says that besides its being a polyunsaturated fat, lard boosts the prot margin of the farmer by making use of something that might otherwise be thrown away.

Janice McCarthy, who buys lard through Green Button Farm’s community-supported agriculture share program, said that she has switched to lard, especially for frying, “because it has a much higher smoke point, because many toxins are fat-soluble, and grocery store lard generally contains trans fats.” She buys fatback (see box on different names for pork fat) and renders it herself.

Some lard fans say that their beloved fat has a somewhat porcine taste that is too strong, so another Paleo Diet adherent, Susan McCann of Morganton, mixes it with coconut oil.

On a recent evening, she sauteed asparagus in that combo. “A few hundred years ago,” McCann, 52, said, “people ate a better ratio of omega 6 to omega 3. We evolved with a ratio of twice as much 6 as 3, so now it is out of balance.” Still, McCann said, “it is hard for people to get past the idea that lard won’t kill them.”

“You have to educate people” about lard, agreed Renee Parker of Parker Family Farms. who sells at the Cary Farmers Market and cooks with lard for her own family. Alicia Butler, whose family’s Green Button Farm sells at the South Durham Farmer’s Market, also uses lard in her own cooking. Zarela Martinez, who presided over the Mexican restaurant Zarela in Manhattan for 23 years and authored several cookbooks, wrote on her blog that lard “has oleic acid which helps break down cholesterol the same as olive oil. The trick is that it has to be home-rendered.”

Carter is a former food writer and columnist at Newsday on Long Island, N.Y. She can be reached at sylviacarter111@yahoo.com.

Mother Linda’s Lard Pie Crust

This is slightly adapted from a recipe by “Mother Linda,” who is Linda Joyce Forristal, founder of Lard Lovers, which helps lard lovers locate lard from pastured pigs in their area. The amount of water will depend on the our you use; do not worry, but do add the water a little at a time after the rst 1/2 cup. For more information, visit lardlovers.ning.com.

2 1/2 cups unbleached white or whole wheat pastry our, or a combination

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 cup lard, organic or from pastured pigs

1/2 to 3/4 cup cold water, still or sparkling

MEASURE our into a medium-sized bowl, add salt and stir. Add lard and use a pastry cutter, a fork or clean ngertips to cut the lard into pea-sized pieces, until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. You can condently add the rst 1/2 cup of water, but continue adding the remaining 1/4 cup of water 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together. Lightly knead with your hands to make a ball and then divide into 2 equal parts. Do not overwork the dough.

RESHAPE each part into a ball and then atten into a disk. Wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling out and continuing with your pie recipe.

Yield: two 10-inch pie crusts.

Roberto Copa Matos’ Mantecaditos

The rst part of the word matecaditos is Spanish for lard, and the ending indicates that these irresistible little cookies are small. “I knew what mantecaditos made by my grandmother tasted like,” Capo Matos said, and he changed a recipe until the taste memory became just right.

1 1/2 cups pure lard (not commercial)

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar

6 cups unbleached organic all-purpose our

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 (14-ounce) tin guava paste (you will have some left over for the next batch or another use)

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees (325 degrees for a convection oven). In a medium saucepan, melt lard and butter, taking care not to brown or burn it. Remove from heat and let cool for 2 or 3 minutes. Add vanilla.

PLACE butter and sugar in bowl and whisk together. Add shortening and vanilla mixture and stir until mixture comes together, working with clean hands at the last, if need be. Form into small balls, about 1.5 ounces each; place on ungreased cookie sheet, and use the heel of your hand to press dough down lightly. (The dough may also be formed into 4 equal cylinders, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and refrigerated until you are ready to continue, then cut in top 3/4-inch to 1-inch slides.)

CUT guava paste into small cubes. Make a small depression, about the size of a pencil eraser, in the center of each cookie (Roberto uses the end of a knife-sharpening steel to do this.) Fill each with a dot of guava paste.

BAKE 10 to 15 minutes in a convection oven, or about 18 to 20 minutes in a conventional oven, until cookies are set and are a light brown color. Remove from oven; at rst, the cookies will be fragile, so do not remove to a cooling rack or space for 5 minutes.

Yield: about 70 cookies.

Feather Spice Lard Cake

There are several Feather Spice Cake recipes on the Internet, but they do not contain lard. This has been in my recipe le box for so long that I am not sure where I got it.

2 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups sugar, divided

1/3 cup lard

2 1/4 cups sifted cake our

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg or mace

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, divided

BEAT egg whites until frothy. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup of the sugar. Keep beating until very stiff and glossy.

STIR lard in another bowl to soften it; cream in 1 cup sugar. Sift together our, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg or mace and cloves. Add dry ingredients with 3/4 cup of the buttermilk. Beat on medium speed for 1 minute, scraping bottom and sides of bowl.

ADD remaining buttermilk and the egg yolks. Beat 1 minute, scraping.

GENTLY fold in whites mixture.

SCRAPE into 2 greased and oured 8-inch-round pans or a 13x9x2-inch pan. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 25 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean. Cool. Fill and frost with seafoam frosting (Seven-Minute Frosting made with brown sugar) or caramel frosting.

Yield: 1 cake

Lard primer

Leaf lard: The highest grade of lard, and most prized, leaf lard is the 6 to 10 pounds of visceral fat per pig that comes from around the kidneys. It is a neutral tasting fat. Leaf lard is also softer than other lard. Though lard can be rendered from any fatty part of a pig, lard from other sections may have a more “porky” avor.

Unsalted fatback: Fatback is the layer of subcutaneous fat beneath the skin of the pig’s back and also makes good lard.

Salted, or cured, fatback: Fatback with the skin left on is also processed into slab bacon, but then it is salty and “rendering” it only results in bacon grease, which is a desirable seasoning for, say, green beans but not appropriate for pie crust. However, bacon grease can be part of the fat in biscuits, is the best fat for cornbread, and can be used with good results in a spicy cake such as gingerbread, as has been advocated by John Thorne, author of the Simple Cooking newsletter and several books with his wife Matt Lewis Thorne.

Lard: When you buy something without knowing whether or not it is leaf lard or fatback, it is probably rendered from unsalted fatback, though sometimes both kidney lard and unsalted fatback may be rendered together.

Lardo: In recent times, uncured fatback or leaf lard, cut into thin slivers, has been served on toast and pizza as Italian lardo. Mario Batali was one of the rst chefs to do this in the United States.

Streak of Lean: Streak o’ lean, as it is often called, is fatback with some meat still attached, often used as a seasoning. Since the purest lard for use in pie crust and pastry is made without scraps of meat in it, this part of the pork is not suitable for pie crust.

Cracklings: These are the crisp bits that are left after rendering pork fat, prized by some, rejected by others.

Cracklin’ bread: cornbread made with cracklings.

Chicharron: the Spanish term for crisp-fried fatback.

MORE LARD RESOURCES

How to render lard: Simple directions for rendering lard either using a slow cooker or on the stove are at polyfacehenhouse.com/2009/05/how-to-make-lard/. Tip from Renee Parker of Hurdle Mills: Cut the fat in small pieces to get the most lard out of it. Also, do not be concerned if the rendered lard looks yellow at rst; it will turn white in the fridge as it hardens.

• Lard Lovers, a network of resources to help in nding organic and/or sustainable source of lard nationwide, lardlovers.ning.com. To read founder Linda Joyce Forristal’s article “The Rise and Fall of Crisco,” go to motherlindas.com/crisco.htm.

• “Lard: The Lost Art of Cooking with Your Grandmother’s Secret Ingredient,” a book by the editors of Grit Magazine, Andrews McMeel Publishing, $24.99, lard lore and recipes, available through Amazon and other booksellers, and on Kindle.

Below are some sources of lard from pastured pigs. You may also be able to buy lard through a community-supported agriculture share, and through some other farms. If purchasing lard at farmers markets, order ahead make sure the farmers bring some to the market for you.

• Old Havana Sandwich Shop, 310 E. Main St., Durham, 919-667-9525, oldhavanaeats.com. Rendered lard is $8 a quart, before sales tax. Customers are asked to bring the jars back and will receive a free cafe con leche or cafecito (demitasse) as a reward. If they use the lard for frying, the spent lard also can be brought back in the jar; Copa Matos donates it to Carolina Biofuels.

• Green Button Farm, 9623 Roxboro Road, Bahama, 919-236-7573, greenbuttonfarm.com, sells lard at the farm store, at South Durham and Raleigh State Farmer’s Markets and sometimes through a CSA. Rendered lard $8 a pound, leaf lard and fat back, $2.50 a pound. (Green Button and a goat cheese purveyor, Prodigal Farm in Rougemont, share a booth in the upper building at the State Farmer’s Market and are changing the joint name on it to Field & Fork.)

• Mae Farm Meats, Louisburg, 252-204-8474, maefarmmeats.com, sells in the upper building at the State Farmer’s Market in Raleigh. Rendered lard $6 a pound (usually sold in 24-ounce tubs); leaf lard for making your own, $3 a pound; fresh salted fatback, $4 a pound.

• Parker Family Farms, 8015 Tilley Road, Hurdle Mills, 919-732-6366, parkerfarms.com, sells at Cary Farmers Market and at the farm, $4 for leaf lard, $2.50 for unsalted fatback for use in rendering.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/01/21/3552428/lard-the-comeback-fat.html#storylink=cpy

[ihpguy]

Well....I used to do kind of the same back in my old life in the States. Every year at Christmas I'd buy the biggest damn goose I'd get my hands on. Make a pate from the liver, a huge pot of soup from the neck bones and innards in my chili/pasta sauce Calphalon, gribones from the extra skin at the neck with slivered onions and then slow-roasting that goose, continuously basting that big boy until the skin was a crispy maroon and that silky fat was drained off and frozen for use over the next six months.

Fried eggs, mashed potatoes, you name it never tasted so good.

But let's not mention the problem of cholesterol. There is a reason poached eggs are a bit less tasty and more healthy for you. Hard-boiled egg white even more so.

[ihpguy]

There's a reason "The Two Fat Ladies" were actually two fat ladies.

....and let's not even go near Paul Prudhomme pre-weight loss without some scaffolding for protection in case he's topple over and suffocate us.

[ihpguy]

But AS, I am determined to master that braised cucumber dish a la Julia.

Fat or no fat.

Diet or no diet.

Acid reflux or no acid reflux.

[AdamSmith]

LOL

No question that rendered goose fat is the gold standard. One Christmas I roasted a goose, and got several jars of fat to cook with over the next several months. Heavenly.

I never did it again, as the roasting got goose grease all over the oven. But maybe next Christmas...!

[RA1]

Always use a roasting bag. Saves time and "everything" is juicer and better.

If animal fat is a product of what is eaten then if my fat were rendered and used for cooking, anyone eating that dish would be drunk before noon.

Best regards,

RA1