Lard carries less saturated fat than butter, despite its reputation
Lard was branded a poverty food and written off as unhealthier than vegetable oil, yet gram for gram it holds less saturated fat and cholesterol than butter, and unhydrogenated lard has no trans fat. From the 1990s, chefs and bakers began bringing pig fat back, prized for flaky pastry.
Lard is pig fat that has been rendered, a semi-solid white product distinct from tallow, which comes from cattle or sheep. Wet rendering boils or steams the fat and skims off the lard, or spins it out in a centrifuge, giving a pale, neutral fat with a high smoke point. Dry rendering heats the fat without water, much like frying bacon, and produces a browner, caramel-flavoured lard that smokes at lower temperatures.
Where it comes from on the pig matters. The finest grade, leaf lard, is taken from the flare fat around the kidneys and inside the loin; it tastes barely of pork, which makes it a baker's favourite for moist, flaky crusts. Fatback, the firm layer under the skin of the back, comes next. Soft caul fat around the intestines ranks lowest for rendering, though cooks wrap lean roasts in it or use it in pâtés. Supermarket lard is often a blend of grades, frequently hydrogenated for shelf stability and treated with bleaches, deodorisers and antioxidants; untreated lard needs refrigeration to avoid going rancid.
For much of the 19th century lard competed evenly with butter in North America and Europe, and it stood in for butter during the Second World War. Cheaper vegetable oils, and vegetable shortenings invented in the early 1900s, eroded its place. Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle did not help, with its fictional scenes of workers tumbling into rendering vats and being sold as lard.
By the late 20th century lard was seen as less healthy than olive or sunflower oil. The tide turned partly because of worries over trans fats in partially hydrogenated shortening, and the chef Rick Bayless became a well-known champion. In Britain, enthusiasm among fans of traditional cooking contributed to a lard crisis in late 2004. China is the largest producer, ahead of Germany, Brazil, the United States and Russia.
Source: Lard
