Fats and Oils: Colonial Era and the Early Republic

When Europeans set up their stockades in North America, they brought with them pigs and cows, the four-legged factories that would produce virtually all of the cooking fat used in this country until the Industrial Revolution. Lard, rendered pork fat, was by far the most common shortening throughout the colonial era and well into the antebellum period. Lard was used for frying, breads, biscuits, cakes, and even as a dressing for vegetables. Before the advent of refrigeration, most of the nation’s pork was salted, and the fattier parts were used for flavoring stuffings as well as stews. Bacon and the drippings that it would yield were prized ingredients. In this agrarian society lard was rendered at home and kept for many months in the cool confines of the aptly named larder. The crisp crust that lard produces in frying was particularly appreciated in the South, where, it has been suggested, black cooks adapted West African frying techniques to create regional specialties such as fried chicken and hush puppies. Certainly pork fat was much more available below the Mason-Dixon Line than in New England, where dairy and beef cattle were the more common forms of livestock. For many recipes, lard continues to retain favor in parts of the old Confederacy. More recently, Latin American cooks imported their penchant for the lard used in their native cuisines. Mexican American cooks, for example, seek out pork fat for the texture and flavor it imparts to everything from tamales and flour tortillas to refried beans and mole.