Felice Friese wrote:

>> We make our own. The local supermarkets (and the Vietnamese shop)
>> usually have packages of pork fat. Just trim off the meat slivers, wash
>> it and render it slowly in a heavy frying pan. Great for making tamales
>> etc as well.
>>
>> Our late lamented cat Emperor Ming absolutely loved a lick of that lard
>> from time to time.
>
> Why, Arri, I never ever thought of making my own. What a great idea!
>
> Felice
>
This past weekend we went and bought pork from a farmer in SC who raises
heirloom breeds of pastured pork (free range pigs!) and one of my
purchases was pork belly. Pork belly is the part of the pig they make
bacon from, except this is uncured, unsmoked, just plain pork belly. I
could use it for making lard. The small bits of meat would just fall
loose and be good. My father used to tell of making lard in the front
yard yearly and that his mother would take the crispy cracklings and put
them in her bread dough. He said it was wonderfully tasty.
Michael Ruhlman's blog this past week has featured pork belly which
sounds amazing....!