mmm fat. I remember having an entree at a thai restaurant that was just deep-fried, heavily spiced cubes of lard. Crunchy on the outside, lard-y on the inside. Pretty interesting, and pretty delicious, but I was definitely sick of it by the end of the dish.

back before i gave up swine, i lived in Romania for a year, and lardo di colonnata (called slanina locally) was a staple of my existence. we'd sometimes roast it over fires like marshmallows, though i embarrassingly admit my preferred method of consumption was directly from the freezer, sliced into thin layers of frozen buttery goodness that no sorbet could ever come close to touching.

pfft. who needs bread ;)

It’s also one of the things that Andersson’s promises you’ll never find in their European-style market.

Reading this made me want to kick Michael Anderson's head in.

Good thing it's still Tuesday!

Tom: you may be interested in this page.

me too, ben! hello, lard is SO european. and delicious. what kind of european market is that.

Also for tom and other lovers of things lardy: my sister has a charcuterie book with a section called "Fat: the Perfect Cooking Environment" containing a recipe for deep-fried pork belly confit.

To be pedantic, "lard" doesn't translate to Italian as "lardo" -- the rendered stuff is "strutto". So lardo di Colonnata isn't the right counterexample. (On the other hand, strutto is easy to find in the shops in Italy, so the larger point holds.)

yeah, i didn't think the kind of lard that the chicago storeowner was talking about was lardo...i'm assuming he meant, like, crisco. or whatever. but i used it as an intro anyways! because i'm lazy.

Crisco isn't any kind of lard. I'm not sure why you would use lard in a salad dressing (lardons on a salad I can see, though), but there's ample reason to use leaf lard in pastry.

well, lard, crisco, whatever kind of stuff they use in pie crusts and generally unhealthy things.

We seem to like to imagine that Europeans eat healthily in the sense of avoiding "bad" foods altogether. But in fact, the Italians (and I gather the French) gladly eat unhealthy stuff, but as part of a healthier overall pattern.

Strangely, I found people in Bologna seemed to buy into this misconception too. There was much talk of "la dieta mediterranea", although the cuisine revolves around pork.

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oh, i have no misconceptions about what the italians like to eat. i think your point about unhealthy stuff as part of a healtier overall pattern is right. plus gallons of olive oil. mmm.