"Bacon Butter" and other thoughts

Assuming that you read this because you love food like I do (and I am both grateful to and afraid for you), then take a break from work...you have started to work today, right?...and check out slate.com's Food Issue. I've been able to squeeze a few spare minutes from my busy work day here at the wine shack and have been entertained so far by Jennifer Reese's reactions to Michael Ruhlman's new book "Ratios", which apparently caused her to go on a baking bender. Equally entertaining and even more inspiring is Regina Schrambling's musings on lard, whose time in the culinary limelight has apperntly come. Best part: her calling lard, which is rendered pork fat, "bacon butter". Which sounds like the best thing ever, no?

illustration from slate

Lard almighty!!

......or maybe it's because they just read this article from last weeks San Francisco Chronicle that reports on the resurgence of this much maligned fat. Really interesting reading, especially since my chef pals all talk about how great it is. It apparently not only makes unparalleled pastry crust and has a high smoke point that makes it the ideal medium for sautéing and frying, it is actually better for you than butter. From the article:
_____ _____ _____ _____
"In 2001, nutritionists at the Harvard School of Public Health reviewed the body of research and found that the type of fat matters more than the total amount. In simple terms, the study lumped trans and saturated fats into the bad category, and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats into the good. That's meaningful for lard, because rendered pork fat contains nearly a quarter less saturated fat than butter, more than double the monounsaturated and nearly four times the polyunsaturated fat, according to the USDA. And lard contains no trans fats, now universally considered dangerous."
_____ _____ _____ _____
You can only imagine my search for lard in Portland is commencing immediately. If anyone has any tips on finding my new favorite fat here, or recipes for its use, I'd love to hear them!

The thing I like about my new neighbors is.....

I'd like to think I'm a fairly well informed food obsessive, but I didn't even know there was a Lard Information Council!!


Actually, this ad is a spoof by the British humor magazine Viz...I love the image...and the message!