Really? Suet? I had always heard lard was the thing to use. Is this regional? I’m in Canada, and Tenderflake lard was totally my pastry thing - got the recipe from my grandma and everything. Except that my wife is vegetarian now, and I’m not even allowed to roll out lard-based dough on any surface that can’t be ritually de-gunked in the dishwasher, so I mostly use crisco these days
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My grandmother was sort of in-between (born 1912). (I’m mid-40s.) Her mother died after giving birth to her 9th? 10th? child so presumably Grandma was cooking from an early age, and probably when most food was still perishable. So when my dad was growing up, there were certainly canned foods, gelatin, etc. but he can also remember his mother killing, plucking, etc. a chicken for dinner.*
*I’m pretty sure that story was on the level. He did not, however, wake up at 4am, and certainly not to milk goats. There was no hill between home and school in either direction, and the distance was 3 blocks, tops. And he did not have to bounce a quarter off the bedsheets for ROTC, which did not even have barracks, much less bunks that had to be maintained.
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I’m not a nutritionist, but I can say my experience maps to this in general outline.s I went on a calorie restricted diet (1650 per day net with exercise) and sought to keep my protein intake up around 1g per kg lean bodyweight, roughly a 33/33/33 fat protein carb split. The only way to do this is to carefully limit the empty carbs you take in, and sugars the easiest to cut out.
I ate a lot of chicken breasts, greek yogurt, avacado, oatmeal, whey & soy protein, everything green. I stopped eating sugars almost entirely.
My mood and sleep improved noticeably after a two week break in period. Food tastes different and food preferences have changed.
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Ha! Sorry, I was just being silly. Tho, depending of what kind of dish you’re making you may want to use butter + lard, lard + crisco, butter + suet, etc etc. It all depends. Suet these days is mainly reserved for traditional xmas puddings.
Also, hello fellow canuck! 
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There is only one answer to that question…
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I actually use a shortening that is all nice and organicy… don’t know if it’s better. I think traditionally, you use lard for pie crust with the butter…
You need both - you can use one or the other, but the crust doesn’t come out quite as flaky if you don’t use both…
The thing about that is, that the bevy of short cuts also freed up women’s time in the kitchen. So, sure, packaged and processed foods are bad for us, but what happens when we move entirely back to unprocessed, all-natural foods. Someone has to cook those foods. Something of a counterpoint to the natural movement in eating - for whatever that’s worth:
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Lard. (which isn’t six characters long, damn it)
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But lard is also from rendered pig fat, and not everyone eats pig.
Then they have to deal with inferior results from inferior ingredients. Their loss, I’d say.
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I’m out of likes, so I’ll just add to your comment instead!
If you go to cultures where the tradition is for most-to-all females to stay at home, even if there are servants (who have even less freedom), the amount of work involved in cooking the family meal is staggering. Bread, noodles/pasta, and individualized mixes of fresh spices must be created each day. Food must be chopped just so, perhaps marinated or simmered for hours. Most dishes will have 15-20 ingredients. It’s not enough to have only one or two dishes per meal, but instead many smaller choices, all made fresh each time. The decision on what to make for dinner has to be made the day before, or at the very latest at breakfast, because of all the fresh ingredients and steps involved. What do you do if half of the population has to stay at home all day with nothing creative or analytical to do? Make them pour their skills into women’s work.
Lunch being the biggest meal of the day has virtually disappeared in most of Europe, for example, now that women are more prevalent in the workplace.
Having said that, I find that having decent cooking skills means I can put together a basic nutritious meal in less time for less money than going out for fast food. It’s the silver lining to living for years in poverty when I was younger! But the underlying premise is that the meal is SIMPLE, not proof that I’m the most wonderful housewife ever. Women shouldn’t have to prove anything by how much time they’ve spent cooking in a day.
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Depending on the recipe, I don’t find it has to take all that long to cook with basic ingredients - although there can be more wastage if you don’t use things up in time. A definite benefit is being able to look at the next few days’ food in the shopping cart and know roughly how well balanced the diet is (kind of like in these photos). You also seriously cut down on packaging waste and fridge/freezer space, although it’s generally necessary to go shopping multiple times a week.
Fascinating, I had not known that was the case. I’d assumed it was still the dominant practice.
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None the less, for all it’s faults, the modern kitchen (not just more processed food, but also modern refrigerators and stoves/ovens, etc) freed women up. You’re forgetting that the ability to go down to the local market and get fresh food is also part of that creation of the modern kitchen - the first major uses of refrigeration were in industrial food, both in getting food to more places, as well as keeping it fresher longer. We’re less likely to be tending gardens, as well, and when we do, it’s by choice, not necessity.
This is globally true. While some Mexican nationalists in the 20th century bemoaned the loss of authentic tortillas, made fresh by hand, daily, Mexican women were overjoyed that they didn’t have to get up at 4am any more to grind and process the flour for tortillas by hand.
Again, you could read the article I posted above from the Jacobin, which discusses these changes and what they’ve meant for women.
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Yeah, I’m not a great fan of ‘authenticity’, but it is nice to have a fairly good idea of what you’re feeding the family. I’ll readily admit that there’s often quite a bit of processing going into the ‘basic’ foods that I buy. However, the thing I dislike about the ideas of authenticity and slow food is that they can be quite elitist and give the idea that you either have to spend large amounts of money and time and be highly selective about your diet. I try to work with my budget to build appreciation for food and provide something satisfying, healthy and appealing, but I’m not making works of art or spending all afternoon preparing it.
I did, and it’s a great read.
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Thank you, I’m aware of where lard comes from. I helped process the pig in question.
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yes I did figure… my point was that not everyone can eat lard, because of whatever reasons (religious, vegetarians, only eat fish or fish/chicken, etc)… Hence alternatives like shortening.
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