Keeping the Essential Foods Going Part II

[Mortblanc]

When I was younger my family killed hogs and rendered lard every year. We strained it and packed it into tin buckets called "lard stands". It kept from one year to the next and I can not remember ever having lard go bad.

http://www.agrisupply.com/tin-lard-can/p/57213/

In the old days there were only a few options for oils in sufficient quantity for normal use; lard, tallow and olive oil. Some nuts also render enough oil for practical use but they were not commonly used for kitchen fry ups.

The rendering of lard and tallow was a big part of preps since they are the easiest ways to obtain the oils needed for baking and frying foods that do not contain their own fats. All it takes is a good sized kettle and a cloth to strain the cracklins from the liquid. We dumped every shred of trimmed fat into that kettle and wasted nothing.

But remember that in the old days they were prepping for a year at a time, not for "just what I need when I need it". If you did not have space for storage you made space because you were not going to go out and slice some belly fat from the hogs every now and then as desired.