Tallow and Lard: Staples of a Colonial Household

1883 ad in the Hawai'i newspaper The Daily Bulletin

In the modern world, we've been taught that fat is a bad thing. Always. But throughout history? Fat in various forms is a staple of life. Science knows now that the human body needs fats in order to properly utilize certain nutrients, that fat itself contains elements crucial to brain development and immunity. In survival settings, limiting the diet to certain kinds of meat actually leads to starvation because they aren't fatty enough.

Not only were fats a crucial part of the historical diet, but they were also day-to-day staples for the colonial household. Tallow, the product of rendered beef or sheep fat, was used to make candles and soap, or rubbed into leather items such as shoes to make them more durable. (It was also a key ingredient in pemmican, a food developed by North American native peoples.)

Rendered pork fat is known as lard, and has a host of similar uses, including as a substitute for butter when milkfats were scarce. It's most famous in our time for being the favored shortening in pie crust, where it produces that lovely, tender flake we all love so much.

What is rendering, and why is it important? Well, raw fats (straight from the animal) will spoil, like any other animal product, and rendering is the process of separating water content from the pure fat, and making it shelf stable. Wet rendering is done by boiling or steaming the raw fat and skimming off the liquid as it rises to the top, and produces a more mild-tasting lard, with a higher smoke point. Dry rendering is done by heating the fat directly over the heat, without water, and resulting lard is more strongly flavored, with a lower smoke point.

When a friend offered me 20 or so pounds of frozen pork fat, which she'd thawed with the intent of making her own lard then was hit with a family crisis, of course I said yes. I love making my own pie crust with "real" ingredients, and more than that, I was curious about the process and the end result.

My friend also gave me instructions for rendering the lard in a crock pot, which sounded so easy I had to try it. And I managed to remember to stop and take photos along the way, which I rarely do, so I decided to share them here.

First was cutting the sections of hog fat into chunks and putting them in my crock pot. If those look like intestines, it's because that's exactly where they were located--the sections of fat along the intestinal tract. Everything was very clean, though. I started to trim away the bits of tissue and blood vessels, then decided that our pioneer foremothers probably weren't as choosy about that as we would be, and wound up tossing most of it in the pot.

After leaving the crock pot to simmer overnight and deciding I wanted to speed up the finished product, I poured off the liquid into various jars (yes, those are mostly salvaged pickle jars, but lard keeps just fine in a dark, cool place), then moved the cracklings (all the bits of meat and tissue left from the rendering) over to my cast iron skillet to make them more, well, crackly.


If you've ever read about the rendering process in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, you'll know that they considered the cracklings a treat. They reminded me of sausage. And oh, the flavor! I was absolutely blown away by how good they tasted. And I'm not even a huge fan of pork!

After simmering the cracklings a while and draining off as much fat as I could, I bagged the cracklings for use later in cornbread and dressings.

The freshly rendered lard has a wonderful flavor as well. I can't wait to use it in the next batch of pie crust! I'm also curious to try rendering my own tallow from the frozen beef fat hidden in the bottom of my freezer ....

For the health benefits of pure, rendered lard, be sure to check out the abovementioned link at Mommypotamus. Fascinating! I suspect our forebears were more healthy than we think, and maybe from foods that we might not always guess. :)

Everyday Items in Colonial America

Here are a few unusual, everyday items you might see around a household in colonial times:

Caddy spoons were small pieces found beginning in the 18th century in cutlery drawers or buffets. Usually very short and squat, the caddy spoon was usually crafted with a wide, flat bowl. Because this spoon was almost always used to scoop out portions of tea from the house tea chest, the bowl was the perfect size and shape.

Sugar nippers were used like scissors to cut small pieces of white refined sugar from the cones in which it was sold. These small pieces were then put into the sugar bowls used when serving tea, or the sugar was ground with a mortar and pestle into the granulated form with which we’re more familiar today.

 

 

 

With open hearths and flames in colonial homes, fire was a real concern. Each home kept at least one fire bucket filled with water and sometimes sand. Fire buckets were made of leather and lined with pitch and often had the owners names painted on them. Laws often required all residents to purchase them and keep them in repair. Fire fighting was a community event and "Bucket Brigades" were quickly assembled  which consisted of 2 lines of people stretching from the town well or river to the fire. They passed buckets of water to the fire, and empty buckets back to the water source to be refilled. 

The quill winder operates very much like a spinning wheel and is commonly mistaken for one. Weavers use a quill winder to wind yarn onto a "quill," a pencil-thin tube of rolled paper or corn husk. The drive string from the wheel rapidly turns the spindle, allowing the weaver to quickly load already-spun yarn onto the quill on the spindle. When the quill is fully loaded, the weaver slips the quill off the spindle and slides it into his shuttle, ready for the loom.

Rushlights were the simplest and least expensive kind of lighting device. They were made from common meadow rushes which grew in the marshes. The outer skin of the rush was peeled away and the remaining pith was dried and then dipped in hot fat. After drying, the rush was placed in the jaws of the rushlight clip to burn.Sometimes they also had a socket for a candle.

 

 Shutter latch to secure shutter to house. Exterior shutters were first used in window openings before glass was readily available or affordable. Wood shutters served as a protective barrier against inclement weather, direct sunlight and dusty unpaved streets. Even after the mass production of glass, shutters continued to protect fragile window glass and provide privacy for a building's inhabitants. 

Have you seen these items before? Do you know of any unusual everyday items that were used in Colonial times?