Before mass-produced vegetable oils became common, lard was one of the primary fats used in cooking worldwide. Unlike mo ...

Leaf lard, specifically, is a fine, soft, white fat rendered from the fat in the kidney region of pigs and hogs. It is mild in flavor, soft in texture, and particularly well-suited to pastry-making.

Also, when and how to use it. Liudmila Chernetska / Getty Images It might not be an ingredient you hear about very often today, but lard has been used in kitchens around the world for centuries ...

And when you render lard from pasture-raised pigs (such as those at Rosy Tomorrows) it’s packed with vitamin D, a nutrient of which three-quarters of American adults are deficient.

The annual availability of rendered pork fat dropped from 14.4 pounds per person in 1940 to 3 pounds per person in 1975, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Connecticut farmer Kate Bogli and some of her livestock. (Photo by KATE ROY) If you ask a home cook today if they have ever made their own lard from a pig, you can probably expect an emphatic ...

They would render the fat and you would get a bit of fat. When that was gone, the next person would slaughter a pig. Now, however, the country has become more ‘civilized,’ people don’t share with ...

Together, they added up to 10 pounds of the finest pig fat, and it all belonged to me. Rendering is how we extract cooking fat from the chunky solid stuff. (The grease in a pan of bacon is ...

Be sure to seek out pure rendered leaf lard, which is made from the fat around the pigs' kidneys rather than from other parts. Look for leaf lard at quality butcher shops, specialty grocers ...