So...What is lard? And it's uses?!
Answers:
Lard is pig fat in both its rendered and unrendered forms. Lard was commonly used in many cuisines as a cooking fat or shortening, or as a spread similar to butter. Its use in contemporary cuisine has diminished because of health concerns posed by its saturated-fat content and its often negative image; however, many contemporary cooks and bakers favor it over other fats for select uses. The culinary qualities of lard vary somewhat depending on the part of the pig from which the fat was taken and how the lard was processed
Lard is pork fat that has been melted then let cool to make it solid cans of crisco shorting. It dates back hundreds of years to when people who needed a way to have what they called cooking grease available year round to fry foods make biscuits & sometimes used as a medicine. It can still be bought at a fresh meat market & some of the real older grociery stores.
Its mostly our elders who still use it but not because its more fatting its what they are use to the taste of. As for subbing for butter it would depend on what your making i've ever known it to be used in anything but biscuits or to fry with.
It is rendered pork fat, mainly from the back and fore quarter, it is cooked and then filtered, as it cools it hardens or solidifies, it is used for pastry like pie doughs as it imparts a flakiness and flavour, some like to use it for deep frying as it is cheaper than oil, tend to last longer when heated to a high temperature, I like the flavour it give certain foods like french fries and breaded food, in pastry work I used it more for savoury pies like meat and pot pies, but it is nice with apples and pumpkin when used in fruit type pies.
lard is refined fat, usually from pigs
its used in some baked good, and is sometimes used to fry in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lard
Lard is animal fat--usually port fat. Some people use it as shortening in pastries (such as pie crust). Some cuisines call for frying things in lard. Usually turn out pretty nice.
It is animal fat. My mom would use it to make pie crusts when I was growing up. Her pie crusts are the flakiest pie crust I've ever had. I've also heard that hispanics also use it when making homemade re-fried beans.
nasty