But when it comes to certain things in the kitchen – such as making flaky pie crusts, crispy fried chicken, tender biscuits or airy tamales – getting the lard in is a pretty good gastronomic grail.

With the Puyallup Fair pie contest looming later this month, lard is on bakers’ tongues.

“Lard is the only thing to use if you want flaky pie crust,” said Patti Browne, a Browns Point resident who won the Puyallup Fair’s grand prize in 1985 for her maple walnut pie with lard crust.

Lard’s high fat content gives pastries tender yet sturdy texture and deliciously luscious mouth feel.

While some bakers and cooks insist that nothing equals lard, not all lard is equal. The best lard is what’s known as leaf lard, which is obtained from the hard white fat around the kidneys (the leaf) of young pigs. It has a neutral flavor that won’t make pie crust taste like bacon.

Leaf lard is different from commercial brands of lard sold in supermarkets. First of all, most commercial lard comes from back fat. But worse, some commercial lard contains harmful trans fatty acids – artificial saturated fats that are introduced by bombarding fat with hydrogen gas and a metal catalyst to give it shelf life and the ability to stay solid at room temperature (think original Crisco).

“The leaf lard is the purest,” said Lee Markholt, owner of The Meat Shop of Tacoma, which sells leaf lard obtained from certified organic pigs.

Jeanne Anderson uses soybean oil in her crust at Boston Harbor Pies in Olympia, where lard is a four-letter word among the state capital’s openly vegan citizenry. Still, she said, lard is “so good.”

“I have used lard in years past when it was acceptable,” Anderson said. “It makes wonderful pie crusts and biscuits. But I think if I said ‘lard’ here in Olympia, people would fall over.”

For those people who still accept a little pig fat in their diets, here’s a little swine news to swoon over: Leaf lard, at least in moderation, is better for you than hydrogenated vegetable shortening, the early-20th century marvel of industrial food processing that was touted as being more healthful than lard while mimicking its virtues.

Unlike most commercial vegetable shortening, leaf lard contains no trans fats, which are entirely man-made and which, despite warnings to the contrary, are the only unnatural fats we consume – in restaurant fried foods and in commercial pies, cookies, crackers and breads. Trans fats have been linked to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. The United States Food and Drug Administration will enforce trans fats disclosures on food product nutrition labels beginning next year.

Lard contains two kinds of fat: saturated, which carries its own health-risk baggage (high cholesterol, heart attack, stroke); and monounsaturated, the darling of the fat world that is believed to lower cholesterol and might even fight heart disease. Lard is lower in saturated fat than butter (roughly 40 percent vs. approximately 60 percent) and contains more monounsaturated fat than butter (45 percent vs. 23 percent).

Leaf lard is available, but not always easy to find. And even when you can buy it, leaf lard needs to be rendered.

“There’s not a lot of demand for it,” Markholt said. “The process for rendering is very slowly melting it down and making sure that there are no impurities like blood veins or meat attached. It’s kind of a long, drawn-out process.”

Markholt said he used to render leaf lard for his family’s use, but hasn’t lately.

“Those kinds of things are kind of a lost art,” Markholt said. “In the fast-food generation, a lot of people wouldn’t know what to do with lard even after it was rendered.”

But he still sells leaf lard, and some people still buy it, render it and use it.

“They do with it what they do with it,” Markholt said, “whether it’s making soap or pie crust.”

Ed Murrieta: 253-597-8678

ed.murrieta@thenewstribune.com

Leaf Lard Pie Crust

Yield: About 2 9-inch pie crusts

21/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup lard, chilled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes

6 to 8 tablespoons ice-cold water

Note: All ingredients should be well-chilled in the refrigerator or freezer before beginning. Chilling your hands in ice is also helpful. (Wipe off moisture, of course.) If lard is overworked during mixing, it will become too soft to provide flaky structure.

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a sharp blade, process the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the lard and pulse until the mixture is the texture of cornmeal.

Alternatively, you can use a pastry cutter, 2 forks or even your fingers to work the lard into the dry ingredients until the pieces of fat are about the size of small peas and coated with flour.

If using a food processor, remove the mixture and place it in a bowl. If mixing manually, keep the mixture in the same bowl. Add 6 tablespoons of water, and gather the dough together with your fingers to form a ball. If the mixture is too dry to form a ball, add more water, a teaspoon a time. You might not need all of the water.

Divide the dough evenly into 2 balls, and flatten each ball into a disk. Wrap the disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Roll crusts and bake according to your particular pie recipe. WHERE TO BUY LEAF LARD

Leaf lard is raw stuff, about 90 percent pure fat. Finer butcher shops sell it frozen. Customers can render the lard according to their needs.

 • The Meat Shop of Tacoma (13419 Vickery Ave. E., Tacoma, 253-537-4490) sells leaf lard from certified organic pigs for $1.99 per pound.

 • Metropolitan Market in Tacoma (2420 N. Proctor St., Tacoma, 253-761-3663) sells leaf lard for $1.49 per pound.

HOW TO RENDER LEAF LARD

 • Remove any blood veins or meat attached to the lard. Cut lard into 1/4-inch cubes or grind through a 1/4-inch plate.

 • Fill the bottom of a large, heavy-bottomed stockpot with 1/4-inch of water and place over low heat. Add a small amount of lard. When it starts to melt, add more. Repeat with remaining lard. Do not fill the pot too high, as the hot fat can easily boil over. Stir frequently to prevent scorching.

 • As the lard slowly renders, cracklings will float to the surface. When the cracklings sink to the bottom, this is your signal that rendering is finished. Turn off the heat and allow to cool slightly.

 • Carefully strain the rendered lard and cracklings through cheese cloth. Ladle strained lard into smaller containers. To ensure fine-grained lard, chill as soon as possible. Use as your particular recipe specifies. Puyallup Fair pie contest

 • Puyallup Fair: Friday-Sept. 25

 • Puyallup Fair pie contest: The Puyallup Fair Plum Pie Contest will begin at 1 p.m. Sept. 19 at the second floor of the Pavilion.