That said, I am headed out to harvest some beets and make borsch with homemade chicken stock!

Jan — Your family’s recipe sounds like a really old, traditional recipe. I imagine if you look in almost any pre-industrial-food American cookbook, you’re likely to find a version of it.

Here’s the fatty-acid breakdown for 1 tablespoon of beef tallow, according to the USDA. (Keep in mind that this is just what they measured. There’s been a lot of really interesting work on the differences between grass-fed and grain-fed beef fat.)

Beef tallow: 0.5g polyunsaturated; 5.3g monounsaturated; 6.4g saturated.

and for reference:

Butter: 0.4g polyunsaturated; 3g monounsaturated; 7.3g saturated.

Lard: 1.4g polyunsaturated; 5.8g monounsaturated; 5g saturated.

So it’s relatively similar to lard on a macro level.

Now, I have been craving pozole, do you think I should make some more lye?

Lisa — Thank you! I’m glad you found a source of local lard and pork. It’s interesting, I think the availability of good, local, pasture-raised meat in this country is a lot wider than people expect. You just have to do a bit of detective work to find it. Websites like localharvest.org are working on making it easier.

Kevin — That’s too bad about the beets. Have you ever tried storing them buried in sand? That’s what we used to do with roots when I was a kid. You can also pile huge mounds of hay on top of them to insulate. But hey, beet greens are great. In fact, I have one huge beet that I don’t want to eat because it’s growing such great little greens, just sitting in my mudroom.

Now as for me, trying to find suet is a pain… I have a Christmas Pudding recipe that uses Suet, and I can never find it in my local stores
AND, when I went to get lard this week… they were SOLD OUT! This was a first… I figured the backlash against Crisco has begun

And I wanted to add, I am a new reader to this blog… but was immediately hooked! Keep up the great work!

Have you tried looking on localharvest.org for farms near you that raise beef cattle? Your blogger profile says you’re in Virginia, so I’d say you’re likely to find several local farms. I’d just call them up and ask if they have any suet. (They might not list it specifically online, since there isn’t a lot of demand for it.) And if they don’t have any now, this is a time of year when many farmers are processing animals — they might be able to get some for you soon. (You also might ask around locally about beef farmers — not everyone is listed on localharvest yet.)

(Of course, the same goes for hog farmers and lard. You do have to render it yourself, but it’s not so hard — I posted directions recently. It might even be a fun homeschool activity!)

blessings,
riana

It is interesting how in the past crisco was pushed as a health food and now it is basically common knowledge that it is not the best choice. This gets me thinking about “modern” health food wonders. What are we buying into today that we might not find so healthy tomorrow?

I know this might be geeky for all the wrong reasons … but… have you come across any studies about how the body processes whey protein isolate and whether this modern food is worth it? (I am really curious about what your opinion is on this one. Perhaps I should simplify things and refer to the above principles?) Anyways, I have “used” whey protein in the past to get a little more protein in my diet and usually by the end of the glass I am left wondering about this instant drink. I am told that whey is not only a shot of protein but it is beneficial to the immune system. Even so, I am sure my great grandmother would have Q’s about this one. Any thoughts?