Retro food.

Lard has clearly won the health debate. Shortening, the synthetic substitute foisted on this country over the last century, has proven to be a much bigger health hazard because it contains trans fats, the bugaboo du jour. Corporate food scientists figured out long ago that you can fool most of the people most of the time, and shortening (and its butter-aping cousin, margarine) had a pretty good ride after Crisco was introduced in 1911 as a substitute for the poor man's fat. But shortening really vanquished lard in the 1950s when researchers first connected animal fat in the diet to coronary heart disease. By the '90s, Americans had been indoctrinated to mainline olive oil, but shortening was still the go-to solid fat over lard or even butter in far too many cookbooks. . .

That's all changed. Now you could even argue that lard is good for you. As Jennifer McLagan points out in her celebrated book Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes, lard's fat is also mostly monounsaturated, which is healthier than saturated fat. And even the saturated fat in lard has a neutral effect on blood cholesterol. Not to mention that lard has a higher smoking point than other fats, allowing foods like chicken to absorb less grease when fried in it. And, of course, fat in general has its upsides. The body converts it to fuel, and it helps absorb nutrients, particularly calcium and vitamins.

What matters more, though, is that lard has become the right ingredient at the right time. It fits perfectly into the Michael Pollan crusade to promote foods that have been processed as minimally as possible: Your great-grandmother surely cooked with it, so you should, too. . .

The best lard is leaf lard, from the fat around the kidneys of a hog, preferably a heritage hog. Flying Pigs Farm sells this at the Greenmarket in Union Square in New York City for $6 per 8-ounce container, and it sells out fast. Lard from the supermarket can still be pretty scary; most of it has been hydrogenated to make it last longer. . .

Only one thing may put lard back on the slippery slope: Google the word as news, and it might as well be lard-fearing 1969 all over again. Newspaper food pages still routinely advise using olive or canola oils rather than "fattening" or "artery-clogging" lard. Or they print idiotic utterances like "you get all the lard you need at McDonald's" (a chain that actually abandoned beef tallow for frying its fries only to be saddled with a trans-fatty substitute). Occasionally an article will make a valid point—lard is still anathema to vegetarians and halal observers—but more often there will be surprise that lard does not taste anything like pig.

Which is one more reason it is taking off at last. It's stealth fat.

All true, but it's useful to also remember that fat was a rare and valuable commodity in the day, and so was not consumed in large quantities. It also wasn't wasted. In my grandmother's kitchen it was saved after use as a cooking oil for later use. Any fat that cooked out of meats was also saved for later use. It wasn't a disposal problem, something that was difficult to compost or a threat to plumbing.

About the only time I get such food today is on the rare occasion when I stop in at the diner early in the morning for biscuits and gravy, and a chance to talk with one of the old boys that I need to connect with before they head into the field or up the mountain for the day.

Here's a clue for the fashion forward food hounds among you: the antioxidants in olive oil can help preserve lard and doesn't have the negatives of hydrogenation. Reference:

It is said that only one per cent of the total polyphenol compounds found in olives are actually still present when the olives are pressed to produce oil, leaving both the solid waste and wastewaters as potentially rich sources of extractable antioxidants. . .

The extract was then dissolved in distilled water and added to lard samples in different concentrations, ranging from 50 and 350 mg per kg of lard. The olive mill wastewater lard were compared to lard stabilized by propyl gallate.

"In all samples, propyl gallate was more effective than olive mill wastewaters. Nevertheless, the olive mill wastewater antioxidant effect was satisfactory, especially in the high-quality lard," reported the researchers.

However, compared to propyl gallate, polyphenols in olives, most notably tyrosol and ferulic acid, are considered to be nutraceutically active, thereby giving the olive mill wastewater lard an additional "nutritional" potential.

"It was found that phenols from olive-oil mill wastewater significantly increased the oxidative stability of lard," said De Leonardis.

And this, said the researchers, shows "a profitable use of olive phenol emerges as food a additive."

"The lard with olive phenol can be considered as a 'novel food' that satisfies the modern consumer's demand for natural, safe and healthy food," she concluded

It would be the Italians who think of such things, wouldn't it. It's something like Bolognese sauce, which has a 5:3 base of olive oil and butter. It gives a different perspective on the Bolagnese nickname - la Grassa, the fat one - as it may be seen as a reference to their inventive uses of fats rather than a comment on their appearance.