Soup Stock and Lard

We still have many fall tasks - When hogs are butchered, we work to use all of the animal. First we eat fresh heart and tongue. Then Ken boils down the heads for me to pick the meat - delicious as sandwich meat or ground for meatballs, breakfast sausage, or added to stews. He then returns the bones and cartilage to the large outdoor stockpot to boil down for soup stock. He made this pot from an electric one he got from a school. He uses a fire of wood chunks.


Once the marrow and cartilage is out of the bones, he strains, through first a colander and then layers of cheesecloth. Next he chills and lets the fat rise so he can skim that off for the pet food. Then I pressure can the soup stock in pint or quart jars. We have read in several sources how healthy soup stock can be for us. In old days, people always picked the marrow from the bones and ate cartilage in pickled pigs feet, etc. Now people buy shark cartilage for health reasons!




When we pick up the meat that has been cut and frozen at the butcher's we also get bags of lard that has gone through a grinder. Ken places these in large stainless steel pots and starts the process of rendering lard. Ken melts the lard and stirs the cracklings to prevent scorching. Then he pours and strains into clean jars for later use.




The lard is clear at first, but hardens to a soft, opaque white.









I continue to stir the cracklings and then we strain those and use in a couple old recipes.




Lard is the most common cooking fat outside of the Middle East where people of some religions do not eat any pork. Pork can be raised in a healthy way and their fat can be used in baking and cooking. And after extensive reading, we are convinced that fat, like all things is good in moderation. Animals raised outside in sunlight have the right balance of omega 3 and omega 6 in their milk and fat. Animals that are out in the sunlight have high levels of "sunshine "vitamins - A, D, E in the fat as well. But animals exposed to toxins will store toxins in their fat. I am very particular about what animal fat I eat because of this. When we have cholesterol tests, our "bad" number is sometimes a bit high, but our "off the charts" good number more than compensates for an excellent ratio.