Lard

[NW-Bound]

We use vegetable oil (no Crisco!) in our cooking, but I do save the fat rendered from bacon for some types of cooking.

... You just haven't lived until you've eaten french fries all cooked up in lard...

...I used to eat at the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Az - they would fry their fries in lard. It's a shame that they closed...

I have never had fries in lard, but supposedly if it is leaf lard, it does not have a porky flavor.

Grandma and mom were right on this one - lard is good for you.

Cooking with Edible Animal Fats | Mark's Daily Apple

Recently, I read about fries in duck fat. Did not see duck fat mentioned in the above link.

 

[kyounge1956]

(snip)Also, my Mom always had a pan of bacon grease sitting on the stove, ready and waiting to be used for nearly every meal. (snip)

My Mom did too, except I think hers is from sausage rather than bacon. She kept it in one of those little ceramic crocks used by Hickory Farms and similar vendors for cheese spreads and the like. I don't think she saves the fat any more. I wonder why—was it health concerns or switching to cooking bacon in the microwave rather than a frypan?

 

[Khan]

Recently, I read about fries in duck fat. Did not see duck fat mentioned in the above link.

Goose or duck fat is great for potatoes.

 

[kyounge1956]

Mom also made a tossed salad and the dressing was fried up little pieces of bacon and the drippings. She called it wilted lettuce. Anyone ever hear of this type salad?

As for the bacon drippings over salads, we like it over fresh spinach instead of lettuce. There are a couple of 'up-scale' restaurants around here that serve the wilted spinach salads that way. They think it's something new! Haha!

Absolutely.

My momma would make that with all different types of greens.

DW started making that some years ago. Spinach, the bacon, hard boiled eggs, and some almonds or walnuts or pecans - probably a few other bits in there I don't recall. Delicious and very 'upscale' with the right things in it. IIRC, there was some vinegar in there, which gave a nice bite with the bacon. Hmmmmm!

Speaking of salads, there is also a potato salad dressed with bacon-&-dripping, which I believe is made something like this: boil the potatoes and cut them into cubes, then fry the bacon until it is crisp and crumble it into small pieces. In the same pan fry chopped onion, then add vinegar, a little sugar, and celery seed to make the dressing. Mix the cubed potatoes, bacon bits and dressing. Serve warm.

 

[ERD50]

Recently, I read about fries in duck fat. Did not see duck fat mentioned in the above link.

Hot Doug's

DUCK FAT FRIES ..... $3.50
(Friday & Saturday only)

I need to get down there and try them. I've heard they aren't really as different as you might think. Hot Dougs is a 'hot dog joint', with a gourmet touch -

Welcome to Hot Doug's!
The Sausage Superstore and
Encased Meat Emporium
3324 North California, Chicago, IL 60618​

Here's a few of their daily specials:

Ginger-Spiked Rabbit Sausage with Pumpkin Creme Fraiche and Goat Cheese
$7.50

The Cheesy Atomic: Damn Spicy Jack Cheese-Stuffed Pork Sausage with Spicy Passion Fruit Mayonnaise and Habanero-Jack Cheese
$7.50

Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Aioli, Foie Gras Mousse and Fleur de Sel
$9.00

Speaking of salads, there is also a potato salad dressed with bacon-&-dripping, which I believe is made something like this: boil the potatoes and cut them into cubes, then fry the bacon until it is crisp and crumble it into small pieces. In the same pan fry chopped onion, then add vinegar, a little sugar, and celery seed to make the dressing. Mix the cubed potatoes, bacon bits and dressing. Serve warm.

Sounds like what I know as warm German-style potato salad. De-lish!

-ERD50

 

[FIREd]

Goose or duck fat is great for potatoes.

I love frying potatoes in duck fat. I usually keep a jar of rendered duck fat in the fridge. Duck cracklings are awesome too.

 

[haha]

Sounds like what I know as warm German-style potato salad. De-lish!

-ERD50

Me too. It's what I grew up on. Similar hot cole slaw, either with white cabbage or red.

Mike

 

[audreyh1]

Speaking of salads, there is also a potato salad dressed with bacon-&-dripping, which I believe is made something like this: boil the potatoes and cut them into cubes, then fry the bacon until it is crisp and crumble it into small pieces. In the same pan fry chopped onion, then add vinegar, a little sugar, and celery seed to make the dressing. Mix the cubed potatoes, bacon bits and dressing. Serve warm.

Sounds like German potatoes, or German potato salad to me. Good stuff!!!

I sometimes make wilted spinach salad with hot bacon dressing. Awesome stuff!

 

[Sue J]

My maternal grandparents moved to the USA from Budapest, Hungary. They were Jewish and kept kosher so there was always chicken fat, called schmaltz, kept in a jar or tin to be used for frying.

My mother told me that before mayonnaise was sold in jars they used to use chicken schmaltz as a spread on sandwiches.

Schmaltz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[haha]

My maternal grandparents moved to the USA from Budapest, Hungary. They were Jewish and kept kosher so there was always chicken fat, called schmaltz, kept in a jar or tin to be used for frying.

My mother told me that before mayonnaise was sold in jars they used to use chicken schmaltz as a spread on sandwiches.

Schmaltz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's funny, these fats are supposed to be bad for us. But the Jews living in Eastern and Central Europe eating shmaltz seem to have done pretty well, as did the people in SW France who ate duck and goose fat, and Scandinavians and Germans and northern French who ate lard and tallow and butter.

The only healthy people in the world did not live on Crete and use olive oil exclusively. They just didn't have doctors with lipid panels to annoy them.

My own grandparents never heard of olive oil, they liberally used butter and lard and when available, beef tallow. I can remmber from boyhood those November days when hogs were killed, and one huge kettle would be on a wood fire to scald the hogs for scraping, and another on another wood fire to render lard (and provide the kids with cracklins).

Another thing from those days that is largely lost in Anglo populations is the skill to use and liking for all the organ meats, which were quite perishable and had to be used quickly. I shop in an IGA with a very diverse clientele- some Africans, some Asians, some American blacks, some Islanders and Mexicans, so I can get and am slowly getting back to cooking various organ meats. Coming up-menudo!

Ha

 

[Nords]

Great poster , from 2 years after I was born. I confess that I am from the lard generation.

The American marketing is pretty subtle, too:

 

[veremchuka]

Speaking of salads, there is also a potato salad dressed with bacon-&-dripping, which I believe is made something like this: boil the potatoes and cut them into cubes, then fry the bacon until it is crisp and crumble it into small pieces. In the same pan fry chopped onion, then add vinegar, a little sugar, and celery seed to make the dressing. Mix the cubed potatoes, bacon bits and dressing. Serve warm.

Yes that is German potato salad. My grandmother used to make it.

My mother would save bacon fat and use it to flavor things she fried.

As a vegetarian there are things that I'd never eat again but would enjoy. No one stopping me but me.

 

[REWahoo]

As a vegetarian there are things that I'd never eat again but would enjoy. No one stopping me but me.

Based on your avatar I'd recommend some red meat. Your color is a little off...

 

[Lancelot]

As a kid I remember that the Mom and Pop corner grocery always displayed buckets of lard on the meat counter. Come to think of it, my Mom always saved the lard buckets

 

[audreyh1]

I have really enjoyed this Lard thread. And I didn't even use lard until about a year ago! Now it's a regular "condiment" - LOL! (just for cooking Mexican style beans)

 

[Nuiloa]

One more lard recipe:

My mom and her sisters use to spread lard on the wood stove and throw very thinly sliced potatoes on - I guess that was the forerunner to chips.

Anyhow - works great in a cast iron frying pan too.

 

[meierlde]

Mom also made a tossed salad and the dressing was fried up little pieces of bacon and the drippings. She called it wilted lettuce. Anyone ever hear of this type salad?

I have made it as did my mother and grandmother, both with lettuce and shredded cabbage. Green of choice, onions, bacon and drippings, vinegar and sugar. As the "evil" nature of bacon grease was pushed my mother did the bacon in the microwave with paper towels to absorb the grease.

I also recall cooking bacon and then doing the eggs in the skillet after the bacon was done.