Conquering Vertigo

Good Things Made With Lard

Praise the lard and pass the bacon!

My Beloved often favors me with excerpts of his nightly reading. It's an eclectic compendium -- The Times, a mystery novel, crossword puzzle clues, recipe books, and so forth.

Recipe books are a recurring favorite, as if acid reflux were printed pages.

Every genre is represented, from Classic French (zut alors!) to Classic Southern (start with a pound of butter), and none is discriminated against. Ingredients may go bad, recipes themselves may be poor, but each culture's cooking finds a place of honor in Richie's Kitchen. And in his reading.

A book of old church recipes from Martindale, Texas, sits cheek by jowl with Julia Child. The Italians mingle with the Greeks, and vegans lean comfortably against veal.
To ring in the New Year, Richard pulled out an old chestnut -- a cooking text with which he occasionally threatens me, and I thought was a fatty figment of his imagination. Yes, we read from a slim blue volume entitled: "Good Things Made With Lard," compiled in the 1930s by the Institute of American Meat Packers.

Oh yeah, baby, how 'bout them arteries?

Chapters are divided helpfully into such categories as "Lard in Nutrition," "Deep Fat Frying," and "Miscellaneous." The Introduction is a piece of work deserving to be excerpted in full, which I do below for your edification and entertainment.

Two stand-out recipes are for a cookie called, in a triumph of terse headline writing, "Rocks," and an apparent family favorite named "Holiday Bacon," in which the eager cook learns how to add even more fat to bacon.

And now, since indeed the last shall be first, the Introduction, in its original and unedited form:

"The biologist states that life is built about hunger and love. This book has nothing to do directly with love.

"But some students of social trends have deplored the rapid rise of feminine emancipation, fearing that one of the most important functions of the modern home, namely the intelligent nourishing of the family, might fall into incompetent hands. Here is a subject worthy of the highest human ability.

"Food products are among the most complex of chemical substances and the changes involved in their preparation are of the most subtle known. Palatibility and artistic effect, although important, are not the basic considerations in preparing a meal. A practical knowledge of nutrition is essential and this science has made tremendous advances in recent times.

"Food has gathered a sort of sanctity down through the ages -- a sanctity which has been largely religious in origin. Offerings and sacrifices date back to Cain and Abel. Later the sacramental rites of feasting, the institution of grace before meals, and even the directions of Sir Kenelm Dingby for making tea, "...the water to remain unpon it no longer than you may say the miserere very leidurely..." all attest the religious exaltation which sometimes glorified the practice of bread breaking.

"But now to sanctity most be added sanity -- scientific sanity. This book hopes to contribute its bit by the presentation of a set of tried and true recipes, all calling for the use of lard.

"Fats have an important place in the science of cookery. They improve the attractiveness of foods and add to their flavor and richness. They are the richest sources of energy, and many fats carry important vitamins and nutritive essentials which the body cannot synthesize for itself."

And so I give you: "Good Things Made With Lard."

posted by Woman In Love @ 9:47 AM