Lard vs. Vegetable Shortening - My Experience

First, let me set up the story behind this post for you.

My great-grandmother developed a set of Christmas cookie recipes from scratch while growing up in Sicily.  It took years to develop the amazing pastries that we - the family - and those lucky enough to know us and, therefore, get close enough to eat some of these cookies, enjoy.  It's the kind of recipe that we get asked for ALL the time...but we can't give it out.  It was my great-grandmother's wish that her recipe never leave the hands of the immediate family.

Every year, for as long as I can remember, we used vegetable shortening as the "fat" content for the dough.  But this was not the way the recipe was designed.  Just like pie crusts and other flaky doughs, lard was the original ingredient.  So, this year, we decided to try the recipe the way my great-grandmother intended - with lard.

To me, this made sense.  It's a special set of cookies that we make once a year.  I wanted - just once - to taste the real thing.  Evidently, this didn't seem to make sense for many other people outside of the family - especially once we tried to find lard.  It was nearly impossible to find in a grocery store.  I walked into one very small store and asked if they carried lard, and you know what the cashier actually told me?  She said, loud enough for all the people within earshot to hear, I quote: "Oh God, no!  Just the thought of that makes me want to gag.  I mean, I'm Southern, we used it in everything, but really, do you know how bad that stuff is for you?!"  Well, cashier, I'm not using it in everything...I'm using it in cookies.  And I'll think twice about the way you tried to humiliate me at the register next time I decide where I'm going to shop.

For this reason, I am giving you my unbiased experience with using lard versus vegetable shortening, and why, hand to God, I will be using lard instead of vegetable shortening in my pastries for the rest of my life.  This, obviously, will not be of any help to those of you who are vegetarian or Jewish (lard is pork fat).  But, for the rest of you, I hope this account from someone who has worked with vegetable shortening for over 20 years will give you something to ponder.

Observation #1: Incorporation of the fat into the dough.  When mixing pastry dough that incorporates a fat into it, the goal is to keep the fat content nice and cool so that it doesn't melt.  For this reason, the first step is to do what my nonna calls "cutting the fat into the dough."  You use a funny looking metal device called a pastry blender to cut the fat up into smaller pieces.  This incorporates the fat into the dough without having to touch it with your hands.  Why is this important?  Your hands generate - and radiate - heat from your body, which will warm up and begin to melt the fat.  This fat incorporation step was much easier using lard, and the lard started to melt even with the use of the pastry blender.  This is something I hadn't seen with the vegetable shortening.  In general, it made making the dough so much easier (and when you're making enough cookies to use up multiple 5lb bags of flour, that's a big deal!).

Observation #2: Consistency of the dough.  For this recipe, it is very important that the dough be neither too moist nor too dry.  The texture is something that you learn as you go along.  At this point, I still ask my nonna to check the dough, but I can pretty much hit the nail on the head as to when it is ready.  I cannot remember a time when we did not have to add extra moisture to the dough once the wet ingredients had been incorporated.  The dough has always been too dry....Until this year.  For the first time, the dough was perfect without any extras added.  Considering the main difference was the substitution of lard for vegetable shortening...we've all chalked it up to the lard.

Observation #3:  Cleaning up! I love mixing the dough because, at some point, you have to dig right in with your hands.  It's a very therapeutic - and arm strengthening - exercise throwing around over 5lbs of cookie dough over and over until it's fully mixed.  The not so fun part is cleaning your hands afterward.  Vegetable shortening made it a nightmare.  The dough would stick to my hands like glue, and it would take about 10 minutes of scalding hot water interspersed with repeated applications and thorough scrubbing with dish soap before the stuff would be gone.  Even then, my hands were left with an unsettling film.  Not so with lard!  I didn't even need soap half the time with this stuff - just some warm running water for a minute.  And what did my hands feel like afterward?  Why, they felt beautifully moisturized instead of sticky and filmy and not-quite-clean!  Now, for those of you reading this still clinging to the idea that lard is soooooo much worse for you than vegetable shortening, I have an honest question for you.  If vegetable shortening is subjected to that much work and heat and is still a sticky film remnant when outside your body, what must it be doing to the inside of your body?  Lard, on the other hand, liquifies with body heat, and removes quickly and easily.  It's still your call, but I know which I'd rather be putting inside my body. (Note that this is meant as a "within reason" statement.  Too much of either fat is going to be unhealthy for you - whether it was derived from animals or vegetables!)

 Observation #4:  Making the cookies.  Many of the cookies we make involve a twisting or "braiding" of the dough...sorta...It's hard to describe.  In general, the thing you need to understand is that we do more than just roll out the dough and use cookie cutters.  In the past, the dough would crack, fall apart, and cause me to do a lot of cursing in my head as I'm trying to fill up one cookie sheet with braided Christmas wreath-shaped cookies.  This year, I was a pro.  The cookie dough was smooth, easy to handle, and generally worked beautifully for everything from the cut-out cookies to the more-intricate wreaths.  My nonna and my mom both commented on how great the dough was to work with this year - so it's not just me having gained some extra dexterity!

Observation #5: THE ALL-IMPORTANT TASTE!  Last - but not least - we come to the evaluation of the taste and texture of the dough using lard instead of vegetable shortening.  The verdict: These were the best Christmas cookies we'd ever made.  My nonna said that the cookies hadn't tasted this good since she was a little girl (when her mom was still using lard before switching to vegetable shortening).  My parents agreed that these were the best cookies they'd had.  My brothers probably devoured their fair share of cookies before they even made it off the cooling table.  And me?  Well, you can probably guess what I thought.  The only person who wasn't as thrilled was my grandfather.  Why?  Because these cookies were lighter and flakier...he preferred the harder, denser cookies that we got with the vegetable shortening.  *shrug*  To each his own.

In conclusion, if you are thinking about making a pie crust or other kind of pastry from scratch, I urge you to try it with lard instead of vegetable shortening - at least once.  Based on what I've seen and experienced, I honestly don't think lard deserves such a bad rap as it gets when compared with vegetable shortening.  I'm not saying that you need to start cooking with lard for everything.  Going overboard is not going to be healthy no matter which fat source you choose.  I'm just saying that, for things like pastries, just be open-minded.  Don't automatically assume that veggie = healthy and animal = unhealthy.  Do some more research, if you feel so inclined.  Just give it a shot, and you'll probably be glad that you did.  I know my family was.