The joy of lard
Who doesn’t like olive oil? Dip everything in it, you’ll live forever, no problem at all. Except for the small matter of horrible, $8 french fries.
What we do know is that trans fat has got to go. The FDA says so. New York’s health commissioner says so, this week urging restauranteurs to make the switch to healthier fats. We’re not supposed to merely cut back, either: no level of trans fat in the diet is healthy.
What are we to do, go back to lard? Hmm, lard. You see the boxes in the supermarket sometimes, looking forlorn. Lard, I think, and roll my eyes. It’s underpackaged—in capital letters, no less: LARD. Can’t they even think of something else to call it? Who would ever buy that?
I just assumed it was something supermarkets are required to carry, for backward compatibility. Once a year, a new carton arrives, and every one of last year’s boxes, unsold, is heaved into the Dumpster. They might as well sell it to old, old women via mail order, like Ralston. (Did you know that Ralston and Purina broke up? A while back. Tragic, really.) But then, who wants a mailbox full of lard?
Pity poor lard, an anachronism, forgotten, unloved. Unloved by everyone but Corby Kummer, that is.
I recently got lucky at the wonderfully antiquated LeJeune’s Bakery in Jeanerette, La. LeJeune’s is famous for its French bread, which in Louisiana means a puffy white loaf particularly suited to muffalettas - the Louisiana version of the hero sandwich whose bread is soaked with olive salad and layered with provolone and meats like salami and ham. I wasn’t surprised to hear the secret of LeJeune’s exceptional flavor and soft but pliant crumb, but I was delighted: lard. The baker proudly led me to a tub of golden lard he had bought from the farm down the road. I was looking at a tub of joy.
Um, OK.
Granted, a blind taste test might confound, indeed devour, my gut reaction. What’s more, we must consider the numbers:
I have a suggestion for those Old World cooks who are wrestling with New World advice: take another look at the fat profile of lard. It has half the level of saturated fat of palm kernel oil (about 80 percent saturated fat) or coconut oil (about 85 percent) and its approximately 40 percent saturated fat is lower than butter’s nearly 60 percent. Today’s miracle, olive oil, is much lower in saturated fat, as everyone knows, but it does have some: about 13 percent. As for monounsaturated fat, the current savior, olive oil contains a saintly 74 percent, yes. But scorned lard contains a very respectable 45 percent monounsaturated fat - double butter’s paltry 23 or so percent.
But, oh, that name.
Come to think of it, perhaps all that lard really needs is a good rebranding. What if we called it…Porcina?