The original Black American cooking fat. Rendered from fatback. Used in biscuits, pie crust, cornbread, and frying. Replaced by Crisco mid-century. Now returning for its flavor and smoke point.
Lard was the Black Southern kitchen's universal fat from the time of slavery through the 1950s — it came from the hog, which provided everything, and it was used for everything from biscuits to soap. When Crisco arrived with its marketing campaign directly targeting homemakers, it positioned itself as cleaner and more modern than lard. Black Southern kitchens converted, and Crisco became the standard. The shift was a marketing victory that produced a public health consequence that took 50 years to fully understand.
Lard's saturated fat content (39%) is real and is the honest centerpiece of its nutritional profile. However, its fat composition is approximately 45-47% oleic acid — the same monounsaturated fat that gives olive oil its cardiovascular reputation. Lard has a smoke point of 370-375°F for regular lard and up to 420°F for leaf lard — significantly higher than butter (325°F) and comparable to many refined vegetable oils. Pastured lard from pigs raised outdoors contains meaningful vitamin D2 and D3 — a nutrient Black Americans are systemically deficient in. The comparison to Crisco is the relevant one: lard is a whole, unprocessed animal fat; Crisco was partially hydrogenated vegetable oil producing industrial trans fats. The rehabilitation of lard is, in part, a correction of the public health messaging that replaced it with something measurably worse.
Biscuits: use cold leaf lard cut into flour like butter — produces a flakier, more tender biscuit than butter or Crisco; the fat melts at a slightly higher temperature leaving clean steam pockets. Pie crust: leaf lard produces the most flaky, shatteringly tender crust of any fat — this is not nostalgia, it is chemistry. Frying: regular lard in a cast iron skillet at 350-365°F is the ancestral frying medium for chicken, pork chops, and catfish. Rendering at home: cut fatback into cubes; cook over low heat in a heavy pot until fat liquefies and cracklings separate; strain through cheesecloth; cool and store in sealed container up to 6 months refrigerated.
Free, no account needed to ask.