Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Lard is a feminist food

Natural lard from a small, responsible farmer is a feminist food because it's heretical, challenges orthodoxy, and is FAT. Lard is a feminist food because our great great grandmothers of the U.S. Midwest cooked with it every day and many of them lived well into their 90s. Our grandmothers cooked with lard until the nutrition police, lobbied by agribusiness to promote vegetable oils, told them not to.

But the surprise is that Lard is actually good for you--its fat profile is similar to olive oil and it has some anti-microbial properties. It's better for frying than vegetable oils because it's more stable and has a high smoking point and it doesn't permeate foods as much as vegetable oils do.

Lard is very minimally processed, can be rendered at home, and can be produced and sold locally.

In addition, lard comes from pigs, who are smart and irreverent.

I fried potatoes in lard for dinner tonight. Yum. However, it took the oil forever to get hot enough. Should have started heating it sooner.

Oink Oink,
Holly

No comments: