First, commercial lard does indeed have "bad things" in it. It's also often old and becoming rancid, which gives an off flavor to your food. The ingredient label on Armour brand lard doesn't just say "pork fat", it says Lard and Hydrogenated Lard, BHA, Propyl Gallate and Citric Acid Added to Help Protect Flavor. "Hydrogenated" isn't a good thing either, IMO.

Nutritionally lard is being found to not be as unhealthy as originally thought, being 44% monounsaturated fat, 10% polyunsaturated fat and 42% saturated fat. The other 4% is "unspecified". It contains no trans fats and has vitamin E. So, it's lower in saturated fat than butter.

So, if you can find fresh lard, hopefully organic, I think you should go for it. Lard makes the best pie crust and delicious fried foods.

If you are stuck with the commercial stuff I'd skip it and just use what you have on hand or can get easily instead, although both flavor and texture will be a bit different. (Remember McDonald's fries when they still used animal fat?)

Annie

I get lard (or used to) at a Cuban meat market that made their own fried pork skins. As a result of making this, they had huge quantities of lard on hand, and when I would buy fresh masa there, they would give a Styrofoam cup of lard for free.

So, I would look for a market that makes fried pork skins, and they will probably have lard for cheap, and it will be fresh. I only used it for making tamales, but now I am going to try them with duck fat, since that is what I have, and DB will eat it.

Lars

I live in an area with a high Mexican population, especially this time of year. I would not be afraid to purchase it since there would be a high turnover of sales. Although I wouldn't make a habit of using it, you can't beat the taste of lard in baked goods, especially pie crust.

Won't help you this weekend but a good source of fresh lard is from the people who raise and sell their own pork at your local farmers market. You can usually get pork fat from them and render it yourself - believe me it is not at all difficult. If you ask, they may have some lard for sale too.
Nancy

I just posted on my facebook page asking for suggestions of where I can get fresh lard for this weekend.

I don't know about lard, here in NYC area the big supermarket Shoprite sells pork fat, and most big Chinese stores also do.

dcarch

Spent the morning so far in search of lard. Found a place which makes european style sausage that normally has it but they are out. Waiting for a pig to arrive. Now that is fresh. I'm going there on Wednesday to buy some bratwurst so it would have been perfect if they had it.

I checked other possible sources but no one has it and doesn't know anyone who carries it (other than that one place).

I don't think there is a shoprite anywhere around here. We do have a chinese store and I've been in there. Unfortunately, NONE of the employees or customers speak ANY english. I've tried and given up. We don't have any mexican or cuban markets that I can find.

I'm going to keep my eyes open but may need to just make them with the oil I have.

I saw your pictures of the cruller recipe on the other thread about 1950's cookbooks.

I looked in my 1946 cookbook to see if they described "shortening". Good Housekeeping said you could use lard but preferred vegetable shortening (Crisco) because a lot of foods were still rationed. I remember my grandmother always used Crisco for frying her doughnuts and other fried treats. I'm old enough to remember when butter was "bad" and oleo was "good". Lard "bad" - Crisco or Spry "good"...how things have changed.

I'm sure the Crisco formula has changed over the years, but her fried doughnuts were so good. Wonder if a small can of Crisco would work. Sure would be easier to find than lard. I know - I've been looking for months and ended up making my own. After all, a little Crisco once every thirty years can't be that bad for you :-)

A funny side note - apparently every bride that got married in 1946 (which included my mother, my aunt and DH's mother) got that SAME cookbook as a wedding present.

malna, Thank you for checking your cookbook. The cruller recipe I posted just says to fry in deep fat. My mom said Gramma used lard. I was thinking about crisco.....I do buy crisco sticks as I still do use shortening in a few recipes. I will buy a can of it and try it.

Those old cookbooks are cool but some of those recipes make me want to gag, lol. I found very few I would actually make.

I will use crisco this time but will try with lard once I can get some.

I will post the results! thanks all!

I wonder if anyone has done a Crisco/lard test? Because I don't use either very often. Does it make a difference?

Every time I read this post's title I read it as:

___________________________
Dear Lard,

Please tell me what I need to know.

Yours,
debrak

___________________________
I keep wondering who Lard is until I realize, "Robin, they mean the ingredient 'lard' you big dummy" and it dawns me I've forgotten all over again! :)

My keyboard and monitor needed cleaning anyway, and your comment just made me spray my tea all over them. Now if I could just stop laughing long enough to get a little work done sometime today...

Thank you, Lard Robin.

Dear Lard..... ;-)

Lard has a larger fat crystal than butter or shortening. When it comes to pastry, the increased crystal size doesn't melt into the flour as much as butter or shortening, so lard creates more flakiness.

For frying, lard has a high smoking point similar to shortening, so you will probably get equally good results using whichever fat you have on hand. What will be missing is the flavor of lard, which not everyone likes because it's just not used anymore. For those of us raised using lard, it's a fond flavor memory for pastry, fried chicken, and for me, a recipe for Crumb Cake we always made using lard.

There is a "famous" fried chicken place close by that fried the chicken in giant cast iron fry pans using lard. They briefly switched to shortening, but people detected the difference and they went back to using lard.

-Grainlady

Interesting story on the demise of Lard.

Here is a link that might be useful: Who killed Lard?

glad to lend a giggle malna ;)

Ah ha. I suspected as much. Thank you for the answer grainlady!

-Robin, aka, for today, Lard

Ha! I read it as Lord and thought someone was praying!

I thought OP was addressing Lars, but using an iPhone. My ses and ds always get mixed up on my I devices. Finally figured it out, though. Trailrunner had a great thread on DIY lard many months ago. Cannot recall whether it was here or in Kitchens.

From Kitchens Nov. 2012.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lard

Back in the 50's and early 60's my mom often made homemade long johns as a special after school snack. She used my grandma'a recipe and one of the ingredients was mashed potatoes. My siblings and I thought they were a little piece of heaven. Mom always used lard to fry them up. I've never made them myself but years ago I gave the recipe to a good friend. She made a batch and gave me some. She used Crisco. They just weren't as good.

Debrak - re: the Chinese store and asking for something when they don't speak English...

Do you have a smart phone? If you do, you can put a translation app in your phone or just go to the Google translation site with your browser and type in what you are looking for and show that to one of the workers. That might net you results. I don't know how accurate the program might be in all languages, but I've used it a few different times in various languages to get some basic communication conveyed and it seemed to work.

Andrea that is a good idea but I don't have a smartphone and no plans to get one.

Today I'm going to a european sausage place where they say they sell lard but are out right now. I will ask them more about it.

If you must have pork fat right away, buy pork belly. It's 1/2 fat.

dcarch

If the crullers you intend to make are anything like the ones I'm used to, there will be a taste difference, but consider that you might actually not like the flavour imparted by lard.

I fry mine all the time in deep-frying vegetable fat similar to Crisco and they're good that way, but the sheep tallow indicated in the recipe gives them an extra flavour note that some love and others hate.

Ok, I plead complete ignorance. I have never purchased or used pork belly. What is it? How much do I need? What do I do with it to end up with oil to cook the crullers in?

I leave for the store in a few hours so please let me know!

Pork belly is also called (sometimes) fresh bacon. It's the cut that is smoked and then sliced to make the bacon you find in the grocery store. Raw, it will look like a slab of bacon - a layer of fat on top, a streaky layer of meat/fat in the center, and another layer of fat on the bottom..

When we made lard, we had three pounds of pork fat (we bought six pounds of pork jowl and trimmed the meaty parts off to make jowl bacon) and got a little over a pint (2 cups) of lard. That might give you an idea of the yield.

You chop it very fine (or grind it which is what we'll do next time), add a little water just to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot, and slowly heat it to render off the fat and drive off the water in the meat. You can do it in the oven, in a crockpot or on the stove. Ours took about 4-5 hours to render, so it's not something you can rush. You do have to be careful not to burn the cracklings (the crispy bits of meat that will be in the fat). Don't throw them away - they are wonderful in cornbread :-)

Hope that helps.

Debrak2008, while on your computer google translate lard to Chinese and print it out to take with you.

If the crullers you remember were fried in lard, yes, using anything else will make them taste different. If your family doesn't remember how they tasted, or never had the originals, use the plain white Crisco to fry them in. But if you want the taste you remember, use lard.

I have my aunt's recipe for hamburger buns. When I asked for it, she said that she had given it to others who had asked, and they never came out tasting the same, so not to expect them to. The recipe calls for lard. I used lard (got some fresh from a local market) and they came out tasting just like hers did! I found out the others who made them didn't use lard. Of course, in my case it was an ingredient, not cooked in it.

If you have any meat markets locally, or butchers, you should be able to get lard there.

Tami

malna, I will ask at the sausage store about pork belly.

Tami, I agree I'm afraid they won't taste the same. I called several local meat markets and they haven't sold it in years. We have a very old market with several butchers in the city that serves a lot of very traditional polish, german, and now other ethnic groups. I called and they also said they haven't sold it or had anyone ask for it in many years. The only one who usually has it is this place I'm going to today. They make a large variety of european sausages. I've never been there but they are highly rated.

I'll report back on what I end up with. If I need to I can try the translation suggestion at the chinese store. They seem to run the other way when I come it. I am obviously not at all asian and probably look like I'm going to ask a thousand questions, which is true, LOL!

I'm glad you all thought my thread title was humorous. On the kitchen forum I was told I posted one of the funniest thread titles. In case you are wondering it was "Why is 26" both odd and Canadian?".

The sausage place was wonderful. The person who helped us was very knowledgable. No lard or pork belly available today. Bought 20 german bratwurst.

Went to a nearby Wegmans that is more "international" than the Wegmans that I usually go to. After way too much time standing in Wegmans trying to make a decision.... I purchased Morrell Snow cap lard. It does say "with hydrogenated lard bht and bha added to help protect flavor". I'm going to try it with the idea of going back to the sausage place to get pure lard when they have it available. For this weekend, If the crullers don't come out with the Morrel lard I will use crisco. I will try them again with pure lard when I get it. Many of you make rendering lard look easy but I need to make sure I don't run out of time with hosting two parties this weekend.

Thank you all for the help!

On a side note, I dropped off my grandmothers cookbook at a binding repair shop. The cover is completely off. They are going to put on a new cover trying to make it look as much as the original as possible. Kinda of sad to replace the original cover but its the only way to make the book usable.

Do report back. I used that brand last night to make Chicken Fried Steak, which I have never made with lard before, and DH said it was the best he'd ever eaten. I am not sure whether that was true or he was just trying to encourage me to make more fried food.

Good luck, Debrak. I'll be having pigs slaughtered in about 6 weeks and plan to keep about 20 pounds of the fat to render into lard. No one wants to render the lard, but it seems that nearly everyone in the family would like "just a little bit" to use, LOL.

I've tried the water method, and the oven method. I think I'm going to use the crockpot this time, you just dip off the fat and strain it as it melts. If you let the cracklins brown, you get a more "porky" flavor in the lard, so I try to keep removing the melted fat so I only let the last little bit brown for the cracklins. And I definitely intend to run the fat through the meat grinder, as the finer it is chopped, the faster it renders. I'm hoping to do several smaller batches instead of one big batch.

Annie

What a nice recipe to duplicate and do for your family. Especially the cookbook.
Maybe you could eventually scan it for all to have a copy.

Lard gets a bum rap. Fresh is the best way to go when you find it to render. What you found should be fine for your crullers. I have no problem finding it here in NY. Not often but have a recipe for a chowder that renders tiny cubes for a crackling topping. Called scruncions. The bit of lard remaining i save like duck fat. Still have trouble using it as it is not on our cooking radar but weekends we are often looking through the fridge and have use it for a Sunday breakfast with potatoes.
I find coconut oil shelf stable and more useful overall. Not for frying. But i don't fry.
So i have no idea what i'm talking about, lol. A quick sear i suppose is a version of frying.

Holy Toledo! If I told my family doctor I've been using lard, he would throw me out of the office. He doesn't accept new patients either.

Enjoy your food!

LOL, Beachlily. I have a doctor who is in his mid-30s and if I told him I used shortening he'd throw me out! I get the "transfat" lecture regularly. Thankfully, I don't like margarine and use butter. (grin)

He just shakes his head and mutters something about at least it's more healthy than Crisco. I can't fry crullers in butter, though, or at least not very well.

Annie