The Search for Lard

Today we went looking for lard. Our next recipe calls for it, and rather than wimp out and use butter, we decided to try and find the real thing. Not Crisco or the other shortenings that are nothing more than tubs of hydrogenated oil and that can sit on the shelf for years, literally, without going bad. Something about that really makes me want to avoid putting it in my body. They say that the only thing that would survive a nuclear holocaust are the cockroaches; my guess would be that they'd not only survive, they'd wind up getting fat on all the Crisco shortening sitting around, still as 'fresh' as the day it was made.

So we wanted lard. Lard, in case you don't know, is made from rendered pork fat. It got something of a bad rap starting in the 1960's due to its' having a decent amount of saturated fat, though not as much as butter. So of course the 'experts' replaced it with chemically altered vegetable shortening - hydrogenated oil - which as it turns out is much worse for you than a little lard ever thought of being. (Ok, so the 40% saturated fat isn't great, but it also has 45% monounsaturated, or 'good' fat. This according to food writer and lard afficionado Corby Krummer)

Still, try going into most supermarkets and asking if they sell lard. In the first supermarket the manager looked at us as if we'd just asked for fried cow dung. At the second, the first guy I asked, who worked behind the meat counter, just let his jaw drop open and then looked very concerned, as though I was planning to use it to harm the two young children smiling and standing innocently next to me. (my kids, not someone else's). Finally a young Hispanic man smiled and gave me an enthusiastic 'Yes'! while pointing across the aisle at the packaged meats. And there it was: LARD

At first I could hardly believe my luck. We scored on the second try! But then I picked up the package and read "Lard 40% - Hydrogenated Lard 60% Needs no refrigeration". Well, crap. I debated for a minute and then bought it anyway. I figured some lard was better than none, and anyway, we might not find anything else. Back home, I went on line (thank god for Google! What did we do before the internet when we wanted to research something?), and looked for lard. There was a lot of information about it, and a great article by Pete Wells written for Food & Wine about how he wound up making his own lard (uh-oh) after reading a Times Op-Ed piece by the above-mentioned Corby Krummer in which Krummer extolled its' use in baking and frying above all other forms of shortening. Pete Wells couldn't find real lard anywhere, and apparently he is not alone. There are a ton of websites with instructions on how to render your own lard, and none on where to buy it already rendered and non-hydrogenated. So this leaves me in a conundrum. Despite my deciding to purchase it, I REALLY don't want to use hydrogenated lard, but rendering my own lard in my tiny New York City kitchen (not to mention procuring the fat to do it) is out of the question.

Any suggestions out there? We bake on Friday, so the decision will need to be made. I'll keep you posted!