Update: This Giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Jill! Jill, please check your email for information on how to claim your prize.
Just a warning, friends: expect a lot of giveaways in the next several weeks. I spent last weekend at the Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup and was more than happy to bring home the bacon for NW Edible readers in terms of great book giveaways, fair swag and more.
And when I say “bring home the bacon,” I’m not being entirely figurative.
GRIT Magazine, the rural living sister publication to Mother Earth News magazine, just published a cookbook of heritage American recipes, all featuring lard. I think I’ve made my feelings on lard pretty well known – go lard! – and GRIT was kind enough offer a copy of the cookbook to one lucky reader, along with a complimentary one-year/6-issue subscription to GRIT Magazine.
Lard: The Lost Art of Cooking with Your Grandmother’s Secret Ingredient is a bit different from a standard issue cookbook because the recipes are collected from GRIT readers, who have been submitting their family faves since the magazine started publication in 1882.
Because of this, the historic nature of many of the recipes (World War II Honey Cookies, for example) and the periodic anecdotes from readers included in recipe sidebars, the cookbook has a very homey feeling, like your 85 year old neighbor from Oklahoma is leaning over the fence to share her recipe for Plum Dumplings.
It’s a very charming cookbook, but it leans heavily to the sweet, with 5 of the 7 chapters focusing on baked goods. In a way this isn’t too surprising – lard is an excellent fat for baking, rendering everything from biscuits to piecrust tender and flakey in just the right proportion.
The remaining chapters, Vegetables and Main Dishes tend toward the fried and the proudly non-gourmet, with the notable exception of Beef Wellington. Recipes like Potato Loaf, Easter Ham Pie and Old Fashioned Green Beans are the kind of frugal comfort food your grandma would have made, if your grandma grew up on a farm in West Virginia. I looked everywhere and there wasn’t a single blood orange gastrique or galangal-scented garlic foam in the entire book.
The inclusion of the occasional can of Cream of Something Soup in the savory recipes is going to make some readers cheer Viva Americana! and others shy away from that particular brand of retro. To each their own. Personally, I’m looking forward to making the honey-sweetened Cherry Pie a bit later in the season.
I made the Homemade Flour Tortillas and they were easy to make and work with. Homebrew Husband declared them the best tortillas he’d ever had and even though I generally make corn tortillas, I’d have to agree these were excellent.
To enter to win your own copy of Lard: The Lost Art of Cooking with Your Grandmother’s Secret Ingredient and a one-year subscription to GRIT Magazine, leave a comment below telling me your favorite recipe or way to use lard.
Drawing open until Wednesday, June 13th, 9 PM PST. Winner will be notified by Friday, June 15th. Drawing open to US residents, only, please. You can tell me as many ways as you like to use lard, but only one entry per person will be counted in the drawing to win the cookbook and magazine subscription.
Good luck!
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A friend of mine just offered me some lard from one of her pigs. I can’t wait to try it out.
I’ve never used lard but I’ve never gotten the all butter pie crust right. And I just can’t do crisco. So I’ll get my hands on some and try it in pie crust!
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you not making this giveaway involve a bunch of Facebook & Twitter antics.
Right now, I’m appreciating lard to fry eggs and other pan-frying things. I’ve used it in some baked goods, which is good, but I’m not as comfortable with it. Somehow, the first lard I rendered was lovely & not “porky” at all. The rest of it, though, has enough pork flavor that I am hesitant to use it in sweet applications.
My favorite with-lard recipe is Rick Bayless’ Swiss chard tacos. Feels a little wild, adding lard to what otherwise would be a vegetarian recipe, but I can’t do it any other way. I’ve done the same recipe with olive oil, but it’s just not the same!
i’ve never used lard before…i suppose pie crusts?
My mom used to have a special can next to the stove for straining bacon fat. Aside from eggs and frying up hash browns, I can’t think what else she used it for. Now I need to ask her! Those tortillas look amazing – fresh are so much better than store-bought. I’d love to give them a try!
I think this is the cookbook I waited for for 60 years! Don’t even think of making pie pastry with anything other than lard. So light and flakey! I’m so glad that Grit is still around.
My favorite way to use lard is deep frying chicken. It may not be as good for you as boneless skinless baked chicken but it sure tastes a whole lot better!
We have an old family recipe called Well Pudding. It calls for lard, flour, currants, brown sugar and butter! It is definitely a special occasion type recipe and has been passed down from generation to generation for as far back as we know. Great- grandma used to put out the call that she had Well Pudding on the stove and the whole family would be there in 30 minutes or less!
I’m a recovering vegetarian, and probably my favorite holdover from those days is a snack. Fried chickpeas coated in sea salt and smoked paprika. I used canola oil on them back in the day, but then I was able to get some wonderfully cheap, beyond-organic fatback from my favorite local rancher. Turns out chickpeas fried in lard are what Zeus surely snacks upon when he’s got the nibbles on Mount Olympus. I’m going to vegetarian hell, but who cares when I’ve got piggy fried chickpeas?
Oooh, yummy!
One of my cookbooks, Darina Allan’s ‘Forgotten Skills in Cooking’, tells how to render lard, but I haven’t tried making it myself yet. The one recipe that I’ve made with lard is a molasses crinkle cookie recipe from one of my great-aunts that she got from her mother.
Question along the lines of cooking with lard…bacon grease. Is there something I can do to the bacon grease to lessen the bacon-y flavor? I bought half a pig last fall, and the bacon produces a lot of grease that I keep storing in jars (because I tell myself there must be something besides cornbread that I can make with it). I made one failed pie crust using bacon grease, and ended up just eating the filling, although the bacon flavor might work in a quiche.
Hi Maggie!
Do you strain out the bits in your bacon fat? Until I read “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient,” I’d never known what to with bacon fat or to strain it. I ended up discarding a lot of bacon fat for lack of knowledge.
That cookbook has an awesome recipe for “bacon fat spice cookies”. Really? They’re molasses cookies with bacon fat as the fat, basically. It’s stupendously good, and very simple. So, I personally suggest playing around with that idea (or checking that cookbook out of the library).
Look for Darina’s books from her beautiful and amazing 400 acre estate in rural East Cork, Ballymaloe House, the renowned Irish country house hotel and restaurant owned and run by the Allen family for over 40 years.
Ballymaloe Cookery School
Shanagarry
Co. Cork
Ireland
The bacon-y flavor of bacon grease is the best part. I recommend using it when cooking all beans. A tablespoon of bacon fat in a pot of beans makes it extremely delicious. Also good in savory tart or quiche crusts.
As a teenager my dad used to dip into his mother’s can of rendered bacon fat to pop corn. I haven’t tried that yet, but he used to rhapsodize about how it was the ultimate snack.
Hello, Maggie,
You can use bacon grease or any other dripping for soap. Just save the dripping after cooking in a container in the freezer. Follow the recipie to make the soap.
If you can get some real lard from a pig or other animal (the kind that lies beneath the skin and surrounds organs, etc, you can render or “try out” the grease. You cube the fat and cook it over low heat. The cooked bits of fat can be saved to to flavor cornbread. Lard doesn’t have as strong a taste as bacon, which has been smoked.
Carla Emery has written a book on homesteading and many other things. I think it’s now in its 10th edition. I have my mother’s copy of one of the first editions, which was photocopied on what looks almost like construction paper, only thinner. Do take a look at her book!
Finally, the best sugar cookies I ever had were made by my grandmother. I asked what was in them; she insisted I taste one first. She had used chicken fat which she had removed from a chicken before roasting it.
Awesome giveaway. When we go camping, we dry up the bacon, then the potatoes and then then eggs. Sooooooooo tasty, but not something I kick out everyday.
There can’t be just *one* favorite way to use lard!
The most traditional way, though, has to be the pie crust recipe that was handed down to me from my mother. She learned to make the crust by watching and working with my grandmother (her mother-in-law). I have such fond memories of homemade cream pies in my grandmother’s kitchen. There was nothing more heavenly than that combination of cream filling and crispy lard filled pie crust!
My fave thing is pie crust. If you can master making a pie crust with real lard, then you truly win my heart over! Delish!!!
Great giveaway! Count me in!
I’ve never actually used lard before! I’ve tried 1,002 (est.) tortilla recipes, and non turn out as good as central market’s. I’m thinking that lard might be something that is missing from my version. Would love to win this to try out the torts!
I have only used lard in pie crusts, and that was a long time ago. I would like to get back to using it again, and look forward to learning other ways to use it.
Pie crust! For quiche, specifically. Yum, and this is a former vegetarian talking.
I use bacon fat to make fried rice with leftovers in the fridge. Used lard in a chicken pot pie crust, which was the one and only time my pie crust ever turned out well. And I have fond memories of baking with my Nana using lard and learning to measure it with water displacement. 🙂
My Aunt Frannie always had a bacon drippings can on the back of the stove……a tablespoon or so was added to just about every vegetable. Favorite: fresh green beans cooked long and slow in a cast iron pot with bacon grease and onions.
Biscuits are not the same without lard!
Oh lordie,lordie! did someone say lard?! Have very fond memories of Mom using lard for everything! Tortillas, in pinto beans while there cooking and refried! And ,I never had a problem with my cholestrol levels. 😉
Right now we only use lard in our homemade soap, but big tortilla eaters at Casa de Dogs or Dollars. I’d love to give those a try.
Just recently found your blog….funny that one of my next projects was to render lard! I will have to try those tortillas for sure!!
My grandpa used to eat lard on toast, instead of butter. I never tried it that way, but may give it a shot. I can get good, fresh lard from our natural foods co-op…haven’t yet because it’s pricey, but I will buy some on my next trip. I also plan on using a bit for my face….
I am sad to say, I have never cooked with lard, so I don’t have a favorite recipe, but you have made me want to give it a try!
The closest thing to a lard story I have is from when I worked in the kitchen at Tall Timber Ranch, up by Lake Wenatchee, one summer (one of the best summers ever!) All the staff got their photos taken and posted in the dining room, and when the camera came around I happened to have the giant tub of crisco out to make cookies, so I scooped a giant spatula full and held it up like I was going to eat it. All the kids would look at that picture and say “Ew! You’re eating lard!” and then I would have to explain to them the difference between lard and shortening.
In real life, I think I would be more willing to eat a spoonful of lard than shortening, but hesitant for either, really.
Among other things, I use lard to seal the tops of my rillettes and store them outside in the cold weather. When I bring them back inside, the lard softens up and I can mix it in or remove it as needed.
What is rillettes?
Honestly I don’t have a favorite way…yet….I just started to save my grease and was hoping to find some recipes to use it on. Soo this giveaway is perfect timing!!
My Grandmother’s “white cookies”. Simply the best recipe ever for rolled sugar cookies. She made them at Christmas time, of course, and at Easter (chicken and egg cutouts) and in between she just cut them with a 4″ round scallop-edge cutter. Those were the best, because oversized cookies hadn’t been invented yet.
I’ve rendered it to use in making refried beans and for sauteing other meats because it browns them so well and just adds a richness to their flavor. The nice thing is it really doesn’t take hardly any for the added flavor.
Also the birds get some too if I find good leaf lard that won’t melt (some is mixed with too much tallow when I’ve purchased it at local butcher shops pre-ground and that is just no fun at all.)
i use lard in pie crusts, cookies, tortillas, biscuits, and tamales. my grandmother used it in soap. my mother still holds onto some flakes that my grammy made in like 1978. she claims it’s the best for getting out stains. i most often use it to season my cast iron since it doesn’t go rancid as quickly as other oils. the only problem is that vegetarians can’t eat my cooking 😮
We use lard in our homemade biscuits! YUM!
I actually like to use lard in soap! I recently made this amazing shampoo bar with lard and it leaves my hair and skin super soft. I also prefer to use it when doing stirfry or sauteing. Of course it’s amazing in baked good as well. There’s just so much to do with lard!
I don’t use lard too often, but I like to use it in my pork rillettes since it’s hard to get good fatty pork at the market. I’ve tried making pie crust with shortening, palm oil and butter, but nothing beats butter + lard. I haven’t found a local source of organic lard yet, but I’d really like to. This cookbook sounds wonderful!
I’ve never used lard. But I have been hearing more and more about it….and of course am now curious about what the big deal is about!
I still need to try to use lard. So far, tortillas is what I can testify to. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good home source of the stuff yet, and I’m not so sure about the commercial version.
I do already have a good written source of lard info, and I try not to bring in TOO many cookbooks. So if I ‘perchance” win, you can pick a different winner for the cookbook and make two girls very happy! However, I would love love love to win the subscription to GRIT. That would just make my day!
Mmmmm…lard! I use it every day for savory cooking. And lard from the pig’s head is as good as goose/duck fat for cooking eggs. Don’t use it for pie crust though, as I’ve found that gluten-free pie crust is too sticky with lard for some reason.
I’ve never used lard but have wanted to for some time.
Refried beans!
I use lard to make lye soap and for skin rejuvenation in the winter. I haven’t cooked with it too much other than biscuits. This book is right up my alley. I just downloaded a WW2 food economy cookbook for the parsley honey recipe which came out great.
After 20 years of vegetarianism, I have recently converted whole heartedly to eating meat. As a baker, my greatest find has been using leaf lard in my pie crusts. Absolutely amazing!
I need this cookbook! I have gone dairy free for my son who developed an allergy in my breastmilk. I miss butter! I have been using duck fat instead with some good results. I was hoping to source or make my own lard to expand my options. Maybe I can live without butter indefinitely after this experiment. I hope not though. Thanks for the give away!
I always cook my soup beans with bacon or bacon grease. Nothing better.
In my family, annual Christmas tamales are a tradition. Lard is absolutely essential in making the masa, and I wouldn’t make them any other way. Tamale making is a family event (prefaced by margheritas), in assembly-line fashion starting with prepping the corn husks, slathering on masa, and adding the filling. The filling is typically javelina (wild boar) that my father hunts in Arizona every year, covered with a variety of homemade sauces. If there is leftover masa we make dessert tamales with raisins, nuts, and cinnamon as the filling.
I would love to expand my culinary lard knowledge, and score this giveaway!
Thanks!
The only thing I have ever used lard for was to make food for some nesting bluebirds, but I recently obtained some fatback from a local farmer and am planning to try to render some. If I’m successful, I will use it to sauté vegetables and try to make a decent pie crust.
Generally I use Lard on my cast iron skillet right before I use it, works great with eggs! Once I get some wicks, I’m going to try turning my cleaned/filtered bacon drippings into candles (my neighbor did it and said it worked great, no smell or anything).
I’ve never used lard before but I have been trying of trying it for some time. We have been moving to a “from scratch” cooking environment and I have read about using lard quite a bit in the process.
Haven’t used lard yet – but would love to if/when I can get it from pastured pork! I would like to try it in coconut flour biscuits.
Tamales. Every year my girl friend and I get together and make a huge batch on tamales from scratch. And lard is essential!!!
I rendered lard for the first time last month and I fell head over heels…! I’ve been using it in lots of dishes, vegetables, soups, desserts. Granola(Almond/coconut/vanilla) is simply delicious with the addition of lard!
We love chimichangas fried in lard. Or french fries. This cookbook looks awesome!