# What happend to good ol LARD



## carlaird (Jan 16, 2007)

Does Crisco/Veg Short taste all lot diffrent from lard??
Will things like frostning and bread taste much better with lard??
If a recipe says 1 cup veg can you sub with lard???
I know everyone is worried about calories but if you only use it every blue moon and lard is in commercial pastries....


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## kyheirloomer (Feb 1, 2007)

Lard has a very distinct flavor, totally different from the neutral taste of shortening. Thus, it works well with some things, not so well with others. You can't beat it for biscuits, for instance. Nor, IMO, for pie dough.


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

I don;t believe lard has any more calories than crisco. It's a myth. Once my brother, who should know better, since he's educated and reads a lot, was piling the margarine thickly on his "lite" pancakes. (THey were indeed very dry and awful - why bother to eat them at all i wonder, if you have to make them like that). I said, if you;d put some butter in the pancake batter you wouldnl;t need to compensate with the margarine on top. He said yeah, but margarine has less calories! NO! it;s a myth, that the producers of unhealthy chemically altered products have tried to foist on the public about their criscos and margarines. They have less cholesterol, not less calories. And now they don;t even seem to know for sure if the cholesterol you eat becomes cholesterol in the blood or if it's actually the saturated fats, or other stuff that makes your body produce cholesterol. I think it will be some time before they figure this out completely and it;s probably very complex and different for different people. I'm no expert so i won;t say. But as for calories, correct me if i'm wrong, but i think fats all have about the same calories. 

as for pie crust, lard is amazing. But i never use crisco, only butter.


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## ishbel (Jan 5, 2007)

I use lard for Scottish oatcakes (the savoury type, not sweetened biscuit/cookie type) and for pastry for savoury pies. I use butter for sweet pastry.


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## mezzaluna (Aug 29, 2000)

I don't think lard is a good choice for frosting (icing) or sweet fillings. I don't know about using this type of fats in breads (sweet or savory) unless you mean quick breads like banana bread, etc.

Since we didn't use lard for religious reasons, my mom always had a can of Spry or Crisco in the cupbard. She rarely deep fried, but used it for that as well as for pie crusts and cookies. Do they even make Spry any more??


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## amazingrace (Jul 28, 2006)

The "lard" you see sitting on supermarket shelves is a lard product, but with stabilizers added to extend shelf life. Unfortunately, it lacks the flavor profile of freshly rendered lard. Even so, I like lard for such things as biscuits and pie dough, but in combination with butter, because the melting point of each is different, resulting in lighter, fluffier and/or flakier products. As far as calories go, there's little to no difference between equal volumes of lard and butter, solid shortening, regular margarine or regular cooking oil. However, if you are watching cholesterol, that's another matter.

I would never use lard in frosting. :look:


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## epi (Apr 29, 2009)

i used to substitute Lard for Crisco until one day my recipe didn't turn out the way I had wished (a bit runny). I told my instructor (naming the ingredients) and she told me not to use lard because it's animal fat. So I no longer use lard.


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## kirstens (Jul 3, 2009)

I think lard trumps all. My grandmother's recipes in her cookbook all call for lard and she knows what she's doing.


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## gunnar (Apr 3, 2008)

what happened to it?...it got a bad rap...that's what happened to it

thread from the beginning of June this year

Check it: http://www.cheftalk.com/forums/food-...baby-link.html


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