I was in Tuscany recently in a wedding, and while there I bought myself a pound of Lardo. Lardo is a kind of matured pigfat and is regarded a delicasy (it that how you spell it? - It’s the way I spell it).
My problem is; how do i use it? I’ve eaten it raw on a sandwich and it was delicious, but you can only eat so many sandwiches. So, HELP!
delicacy
Searching Google on lardo recipes brought up a number of tasty-looking options including this one. You might get more responses if you ask a Mod to move this thread to Cafe Society.
Moved to Cafe.
samclem GQ moderator.
mange
I thought the name sounded a little too close to “lard” for my liking.
Uh. Lard sandwiches? Why not just buy some crisco?
Man. The things some people eat.
Because a crisco sandwich wouldn’t be good. Lardo is to lard what prosciutto is to a pork chop.
I’ve seen it referenced a lot as an upscale pizza topping (and drooled) recently, but I think you’d want to add it at the last minute to a hot out of the oven pizza, rather than bake it on, from what I understand.
In the end, it’s still lard. Pardon me if I don’t differentiate between the two.
In the interest of fighting ignorance:
http://www.cucinait.com/cucinait/WorldEdition/Glossary/Glossary_6692.htm
But if it doesn’t sound appealing to you, then goodness knows there’s no reason for you to eat it.
Crisco, on the other hand, is not even lard. An all-vegetable oil product is just not the same thing. That sort of distinction matters when it comes to certain kinds of traditional pastry products that you may well dislike too (steak and kidney pudding, yum, wouldn’t dream of making it with vegetable shortening in the pastry!)
http://www.crisco.com/about/history/index.asp
Rereading my posts, I’m coming off a bit jerkish and that wasn’t my intent. It’s just the idea of eating fat as anything other than marbling in a steak, especially in a sandwich, is a bit off-putting, to put it mildly.
Chalk it up to cultural differences and/or conservatism in regards to food.
I apologize for any inadvertent offense.
What culture do you come from? You don’t flavor bread with butter, or eat starchy foods deep fried in fat?
I’m a Southerner actually but I differentiate between eating deep fried foods and eating an actual piece of fat which, in my personal experience, isn’t common in Southern cuisine aside from things like the cube of fat in pork and beans, which I studiously avoid.
Probably could have picked a better phrase than cultural difference though. ::shrug::
You mean it’s the same thing, but in a different language?
Huh? Prosciutto doesn’t mean “pork chop”. At least, it doesn’t mean what I think of a pork chop.
So … a more accurate translation would be “pig jerky”, then?