To many modern cooks it looks strange, perhaps even unappetising. Yet for generations caul fat was a valuable ingredient. It wrapped sausages, protected joints of meat during roasting and, perhaps most famously, encased faggots.

Today, faggots are often misunderstood. The name raises eyebrows, in the UK they are a supermarket convenience food. But traditional faggots tell a different story. They belong to a world in which every part of the animal was valued, where liver and kidney were everyday foods, and where thrift and good eating went hand in hand.

For anyone interested in ancestral foods, faggots are a perfect example of nose-to-tail cooking. They transform humble ingredients into something nourishing, economical and deeply satisfying.

Faggot – A Dish Born of Economy

Historically, faggots were working people’s food.

They were made from the parts of the animal that wealthier households often ignored: liver, heart, lights (lungs), kidneys and fatty trimmings. Rather than being wasted, these cuts were minced together, seasoned generously and wrapped in caul fat before baking.

The result was far more delicious than the humble ingredients might suggest. The offal provided richness and nutrition, while the caul fat basted the meat as it cooked, creating a dish that was both economical and satisfying.

While traditionally, faggots relied heavily on offal, recipes these days include minced pork and bacon alongside liver and kidney, making them more approachable to modern tastes.

What Is Caul Fat?

One of the most distinctive features of faggots is the wrapping.

Caul fat is the thin membrane of fat that surrounds the stomach and internal organs of an animal. Pig caul fat is particularly delicate, resembling a lace curtain or net. Despite its fragile appearance, it is surprisingly strong.

When wrapped around a faggot, the caul fat performs several jobs. It holds the mixture together, just like a sausage casing would. As it cooks, it melts slowly into the meat, keeping it moist and adding flavour. By the end of cooking, you don’t even notice the caul fat, it has disappeared into the faggot itself.

Beef caul fat can also be used, but it is considerably thicker than pork caul fat.

Traditional Pork Faggots

This version combines pork mince, liver, kidney and bacon with mushrooms, onion, oats and warming spices. It includes an onion and mushroom-enhanced gravy, which is poured over the uncooked faggots in their baking dish before the whole thing is put in the oven.

• Makes: 12 faggots
• Preparation time: 40 minutes
• Cooking time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

For the Faggots

• 500g pork mince/ground pork
• 100g pig liver
• 1 pork kidney
• 4 rashers back bacon (if you are using streaky (American) bacon, use 6 rashers)
• 1 onion
• 150g mushrooms (about 6 medium mushrooms)
• c. ⅜ cup oatmeal (oatmeal is the English term for uncooked, stone-ground oats. If you can’t get this, you can use rolled oats that have been ground into a coarse flour.)
• Salt, to taste
• Black pepper, to taste
• Ground mace, to taste
• Ground allspice, to taste
• Pig caul fat

For the Gravy

• 1 onion, chopped
• Mushrooms, chopped
• Stock (pork or chicken work best)
• Flour, for thickening (most often I use chickpea flour)

Method

1. Remember to, at the right time in your process, preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Roughly chop the liver, kidney, bacon, onion and mushrooms.
3. Place them in a food processor with the pork mince, oatmeal, salt, pepper, mace and allspice.
4. Pulse until everything is finely minced and evenly combined and a consistency that can be loosely shaped into balls. If your meat was previously-frozen you may need more oatmeal/oat flour to do this. (You can do steps 2 and 3 by hand if desired, cutting the ingredients up finely.)
5. Carefully unravel the caul fat, separating it into pieces large enough to wrap individual faggots, each at least 6 inches square.
6. Shape the mixture into balls roughly the size of large golf balls.
7. Place each ball onto a piece of caul fat and wrap it around the meat, tucking the ends underneath.
8. Arrange the wrapped faggots in a lidded baking dish with the tucked side facing down.

This mixture usually makes 12 faggots. If you find that you have mixture left over, you can, if you have enough caul fat, make more faggots or you can shape the mixture into burgers to fry. These taste really good!

To Make the Gravy (to be added to the baking dish)

1. Gently fry the chopped onion and mushrooms before adding the stock.
2. Thicken this mixture to make a gravy. I use chickpea flour, adding 2 rounded tbsp per 500mil stock. I make a paste with the flour, taking a little warm stock from the saucepan and stirring it into the flour before returning the paste to the saucepan and stirring the whole thing for 5-10 minutes while the flour cooks and thickens the liquid.
3. Pour the gravy around the faggots in the baking dish.

Put the lid (or foil) over the dish. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for about 40 minutes, until the faggots are cooked through and the gravy is bubbling.

Serve with greens and plenty of gravy.

Why Faggots Deserve a Place on the Modern Table

Faggots remind us of a way of eating that was once entirely normal.

Earlier generations understood that the most nutritious parts of an animal were often the least expensive. Offal wasn’t a specialist ingredient. It was simply food. Caul fat wasn’t discarded. It was valued for the flavour and practicality it brought to the kitchen.

Today many people are trying to eat more sustainably, make better use of the animals they buy and reconnect with traditional foods. Faggots embody all of those values. They are nourishing, economical and rooted in centuries of practical wisdom.

Most of all though, they are delicious. And making them this way, with pork mince/ground pork and bacon, with a rich gravy, you really do not notice that liver and kidney are hiding inside. THey are a great way to get kids eating offal!

Why Are They Called Faggots?

Historically, the word faggot referred to a bundle of sticks tied together for fuel. The term comes from the same root as the French fagot, meaning a bundle of twigs. By extension, the word was also used for anything gathered together into a compact bundle.

In culinary terms, the name makes perfect sense. A traditional faggot is a collection of minced meats and offal bound together into a ball and wrapped in caul fat. It is, quite literally, a bundle of ingredients tied together.

Food historians generally regard this as the origin of the dish’s name. Similar uses of the word can be found in historical English dialects, where faggot was used for various kinds of bundled materials.

While the word has acquired other meanings over time, the dish preserves the older and entirely innocent sense of the term. In the Black Country, South Wales and other areas where faggots remained popular, the name has continued in everyday use for generations.

In that respect, faggots are rather like haggis, pudding and other traditional foods whose names preserve traces of older ways of speaking and thinking. The dish is not simply a recipe; it is a small piece of cultural history that has survived on the dinner table long after much of the world that created it has disappeared.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do faggots taste like?

These faggots have a rich, savoury flavour something like pork meatballs. The liver provides depth, while the bacon, pork and spices soften its intensity. Even people who don’t usually enjoy liver are often surprised by how much they like faggots.

Can I make faggots without caul fat?

Yes, but the result will be different. Caul fat helps hold the faggots together and bastes them as they cook. Without it they can become drier and less tender. If you cannot find caul fat, you can still make the mixture into meatballs and bake it in the gravy.

Where can I buy caul fat?

A traditional butcher or your local farmer is your best source. You’ll probably need to ask for it specially and give them a bit of notice.

Can I freeze faggots?

Yes, I freeze them often – both before and after cooking. If freezing before cooking, place them on a tray until firm and then transfer them to a container or freezer bag.

Why are faggots wrapped in caul fat?

Historically, caul fat was an economical way of holding minced meat together before modern casings and packaging were widely available. It also improves flavour and texture by slowly melting into the meat during cooking.

What stock should I use in faggots?

I use home-made bone broth or meat stock. If you’d like to know more about how to go about producing this yourself, listen to Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode Bones & Water: The Magic of Stock

Are faggots healthy?

Traditional faggots are nutrient-dense foods. Liver and kidney are rich in vitamins and minerals, while the oats add texture and help bind the mixture. As with many traditional foods, they are most satisfying when served as part of a balanced meal with vegetables.

Can I use different offal?

Absolutely. Historical recipes varied considerably. Heart, lights (lungs) and other inexpensive cuts were commonly used alongside liver. The exact ingredients often depended on what was available after slaughter.

Are faggots Welsh or English?

Both. Faggots are particularly associated with South Wales and the English Midlands, especially the Black Country. Closely related recipes appear across Britain, reflecting a widespread tradition of turning inexpensive cuts and offal into nourishing meals.

You might also like:

My 5 Favourite Ways to Use Bone Broth
What Does Eating Ancestrally Mean?
Traditional Scottish Oatcakes

For most of human history, rendering fat was not a niche skill. It was simply what happened after butchering. Fat was carefully cut away, chopped, melted slowly and stored. Nothing was wasted. Fat meant calories. It meant flavour. It meant survival through winter.

Today, good-quality lard or tallow can be surprisingly expensive. Yet the process of rendering fat at home is simple, deeply traditional, and immensely satisfying. This guide will walk you gently through how to render pork lard and beef tallow using methods that would be entirely familiar to our ancestors.

Why Render Fat at Home?

To save money:

Eating ancestrally is touted as being expensive. That’s unsurprising when you realise that, for example, shop-bought tallow can cost upwards of £30 per kilogram (20USD per pound). Meanwhile, many butchers will sell (or even give away) back fat or suet for a fraction of that price – my experience is that home-rendered fat can cost as little as a tenth of the price of the shop version .

To get a real food product:

When we strive to eat real food, choosing vegetables and meat carefully, why would we ignore the quality of our fat? When we render lard or tallow at home we know where our fat has come from. We also get to potentially support a community food economy, buying from a farmer local to us.

To enjoy the delicious flavour:

Shop-bought lard or tallow is often made with fat that’s come through the industrial food chain. That, along with the fact that it is often hydrogenated (to extend its shelf life) means that it does not taste good. When you render fat at home, you get to use good fat and apply gentle heat only. The result is that it tastes amazing..

Cooking with home-rendered fat is a joy!

And finally, there is something less tangible but just as important — cooking with fat you’ve rendered yourself is a joy. Pastry, roast potatoes, cookies…they all take on a new dimension of wholeness when you know that you made the fat at home.

Understanding the Different Fats

Pork:

Pork fat, once rendered, becomes lard.

The fat from the pig’s back is most commonly used, though lard made with kidney fat — known as leaf lard — has traditionally been prized for delicate pastries because of its mild flavour. If you can access it, you can also render the fatty membrane surrounding the organs – this is called caul fat.

Beef:

Beef fat, once rendered, becomes tallow.

The fat from the cow’s back is most commonly used. The hard, crumbly fat around the kidneys of a cow can also be rendered. It is called suet when raw; once melted and strained, it is also tallow. Beef caul fat  (which surrounds the organs) can also be rendered.

Though rendered fats can vary greatly, lard is generally softer and whiter than tallow. Lard can be spread from the fridge, whereas if you want to use refrigerated tallow you’ll need to break off chunks.

How to Render Fat at Home (Traditional Methods)

At its heart, rendering is simply melting fat slowly enough that it liquefies without burning. The ideal temperature to maintain during the process is around 104–121°C (220–250°F).

As a rule of thumb, lower and slower is always safer than hotter and hurried.

The First Step: Chop Your Fat

The smaller you can get your pieces of fat, the easier it will be to get the lard or tallow out of them – the heat will reach all the parts more quickly. So start by chopping the raw fat into small pieces. This can be done by hand, with a hand/electric mincer or even with the grating blade of your food processor. This is the most time-consuming part of the whole process (trust me, it gets easier after this!) – here are some of my tips for this stage:

• If you’re doing this by hand, use a sharp knife!
• If your fat still has a lot of meat attached and it’s hard to clean it up, consider using the wet-rendering method below as opposed to the dry rendering method
• Chill or partially freeze your raw fat to help make it easier to mince
• You can use the cracklings (the left over pieces of fat) post-rendering (see below for recipes). If you’d like to this this, chop by hand rather than mince to stop them being too small.
• If your butcher/farmer has an electric mincer, you could ask them to pre-mince the fat for you!

Once your fat is chopped, Two distinct methods of rendering are common. Choose the one that suits you based on your needs:

The Dry Rendering Method

With dry rendering, the finely chopped fat is placed directly into a heavy pot, oven dish or slow cooker and heated gently without added water. As it melts, you pour off the liquid fat periodically before returning the in-progress fat pieces to the heat.

You can do this process in the oven (at around 104C/220F to 121C/250F) or in a slow cooker (including the Instant Pot on its slow cooker setting).

The rendering process should take around six to nine hours, depending on the size of the fat and the temperature of your heat source. Return to the pan every 60-90 minutes and pour off the liquid fat. When the cracklings are small, crisp and give up little fat, you are finished.

Check my full step-by-step guide to how to render lard in a slow cooker, which walks through the process in detail – its methods can be applied to an oven too.

The Wet Rendering Method

Wet rendering differs from the dry method in that you add a small amount of water to the pot that contains the fat. As it heats gently, the water prevents scorching and helps separate any impurities from the mix.

Just like dry rendering, this process can be done in the oven (with a lidded pot) or in a slow cooker (including the Instant Pot on its slow cooker setting) To wet render fat, pour half a cup of water into your pot, then add the chopped fat. Turn on the heat to between 104C/220F to 121C/250F and allow the fat to melt slowly.

Depending on the size of your fat pieces and the temperature of your heat source, this process may take six to nine hours. As the hours roll on, check the progress by looking at the size of the fat pieces – once they are much smaller (less than a third the size they were), strain off the liquid into a large bowl and allow it to cool. It will separate – the fat rising to the top and the water remaining at the bottom. Once cool, place the bowl in the fridge – here it will solidify into a firm, pale layer of fat above any remaining water.

One solid, lift off the layer of fat and turn it over. The bottom will potentially have impurities and some remains of the water clinging to it. Scrape this off so that you are left with a surface of clean, dry fat.

Should I dry or wet render?

I am often asked this question. Here are considerations to think about when deciding:

• Dry rendering has fewer stages – you don’t need to cool, refrigerate and then scrape the result. Wet rendering generally takes me two days, I can complete dry rendering in one.
• Dry rendering is better if you have ‘clean’ fat that isn’t dotted with pieces of meat still attached – as these would create impurities that would remain in the fat.
• With dry rendering, it’s easier to tell when the process is complete – the liquid you can pour off will reduce substantially.
• Wet rendering does not require you to return to the mixture every 60 – 90 minutes; you can turn it on and forget about it for at least four to six hours, and, when you get used to how long it takes for you, you could potentially leave it longer.
• Wet rendering is better if you have fat that is dotted with pieces of meat – the impurities will get moved to the water and discarded.

How To Know When It’s Done

There is no hard and fast rule for this. Every batch of fat is different; the size of the pieces makes a big difference and the temperature of your heat source impacts the timing too. As you render regularly you will begin to learn the cues and what works for you.

The biggest indicator is the size and colour of the fat pieces. As the fat renders, they will become smaller – potentially reducing to a third or a quarter of their original size. They will also, particularly with dry rendering, turn golden.

If you are dry rendering, the amount of liquid you can pour off in every check will decrease substantially. When I dry render, there is always a moment of diminishing returns – do not risk scorching the fat chasing the final spoonful!

Storing Rendered Fat

Well rendered fat should last well even left out on the counter.

But, after a decade of rendering fat, I still do not choose to leave mine on the counter.  Why? Because rendering fat is a commitment of money, energy and time and even a small chance of it going bad is not something I want to happen!

When rendering day is done, I keep one container of lard or tallow in my fridge and freeze the rest. ‘Clean’ fat (fat in which you can’t see impurities – they will generally settle on the bottom of the container) will last two to three weeks in the fridge and many years in the freezer.

How to know if it’s gone bad

If you see mould on your fat, discard it. Other than that, it may go ‘rancid’ (off). You can judge this by the small – rancid fat smells unmistakably unpleasant — sharp and stale. I very rarely have fat go rancid, but if you’re in doubt, discard it.

Cooking With Rendered Fat

I use home-rendered fat in my kitchen many times a day. Here are my suggestions:

• Spread lard on bread and top it with salt
• Fry bread in lard or tallow
• Dot lard over a tray of vegetables, add some spices/herbs and then bake them in the oven
• Use lard in enriched-dough breads, in place of butter
• Use tallow or lard to fry vegetables, meat or pancakes
• Lard is great to grease bread baking tins, cake moulds, cookie sheets and gratin dishes
• Melt tallow and lard and, using a pastry brush, paint them over butternut squash slices before the oven
• Make Traditional Scottish Oatcakes using the traditional lard or tallow!

What to Do With the Leftover Solid Fat (Cracklings)

I love cracklings, viewing them a gift, not a by-product. Eat them warm with salt. Scatter them over soups or scrambled eggs. Fold them into bread. My Italian-inspired Pane con Ciccioli is a beautiful example of turning these small, crisp pieces into something celebratory.

You can also make a delicious spread from them by checking my recipe: 7 ways to use lard (including a crackling spread recipe).

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between suet and tallow?

Suet is the raw kidney fat from cattle or sheep. Once rendered and purified, it becomes tallow.

Can you use suet without rendering?

Yes, suet is traditionally used in British ‘puddings’ (steamed dishes) without rendering.

Why is some rendered fat yellow?

Fat can vary in colour. Beef fat is more yellow that pig fat. Grass-fed animals often produce yellower fat due to carotenoids in pasture. The breed and season also influence colour.

How long does rendered fat last?

Years in the freezer. Many months in the refrigerator. Room temperature storage depends entirely on cleanliness and dryness.

Can I render fat in a slow cooker?

Yes. A slow cooker provides steady, gentle heat and is an excellent tool for rendering lard or tallow.

If I want to use rendered fat in cosmetics/toiletries, how should I render it?

If you are planning to use your home-rendered fat in home-made toiletries or cosmetics, it’s best to wet render it. This method will help removed impurities better than dry rendering. Many people who wet-render for this purpose add salt to the fat/water mix (to pull our more impurities) and, once the finished fat has solidified, render it a second and even third time with more water/salt to cleanse it further.

Where can I get good-quality fat as an economical price?

The best place to start looking for good-quality fat is a local farmer. They may not be used to people wanting fat; tell them what you’d like, how much you’d like and what you’re going to use it for. If you don’t yet have a local farmer network and would like to build one, visit local farmers markets, talk to friends and ask at local shops.

Can I eat the fat off the top of my broth?

Yes. Broth, particularly beef broth, when cooled will be topped with a layer of fat. The easiest way to access this is to put your strained broth, still in the bowl, in the fridge. The top fat layer will harden and, the next day, you can carefully remove it. This fat will not last as long as ‘properly’ rendered fat (as it has impurities and liquid in it), but can be kept in the fridge for four to five days.

I save my drippings, isn’t this rendered fat?

Yes, it is. Any fat that drains from bacon, joints or burgers is technically rendered fat. Do scrape your pans after cooking – the fat is often infused with cooking ingredients (salt and herbs/spices) and it delicious. Keep it in the fridge and use it to spread on bread or fry some vegetables.

How can I learn more about rendering fat?

Ancestral Kitchen Podcast has an episode dedicated to rendering fat: How to Render Fat at Home (With Q&A)
If you’d like to know which fats I cook with and why, there is also this Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episode, The Fats We Love, The Fats We Leave

You might also like:

How To Render Lard in the Slow Cooker
7 Ways to Use Lard (Including a Lard Crackling Spread Recipe)
How To Make Lardo (Italian Cured Pig Fat) at Home

Occasionally, I remember that people outside of my bubble think that lard, if they ate it, would kill them and I feel simultaneously incredibly grateful for the world (and community) I have found and incredibly sad for the food situation we find ourselves in.

Lard can be a staple, but it is also a pleasure! So let me kick off my list of the many ways I use lard (and its cracklings) in my kitchen with my number one lard pleasure…

1. Lard on bread

Lard is so good as a spread. Cut a slice of sourdough, liberally spread it with lard and grind some salt on the top. Heaven. This combo is part of my main meal virtually every day.

2. Lard for frying

The smoking temperature of lard is 370°F/188°C, higher than that of coconut oil and butter, so it’s a good fat to fry in. I use it as my frying fat – eggs, onions, courgettes (zucchini), bread (you have to try this!)…they all get fried in lard in my kitchen. I have also deep fried in lard, making crunchy pigskin.

3. Lard when roasting

Lard is my go-to fat to accompany things inside my oven – both vegetables and meat; I bake autumn squash with rosemary and oregano using it and I smear it on chickens.

4. Lard to grease dishes

Always economical, I use lard to grease all of my dishes including my baking tins for sourdough and flat baking trays for things like biscuits and focaccia.

5. Lard as an ingredient in cakes

Lard is my first choice fat to use in cakes. There will be a sourdough chocolate cake using lard in the soon-to-be-released podcast sourdough spelt cookbook!

6. Lard in bread

Lard is a traditional and wonderful ingredient in bread. Our frugal ancestors, using everything, often made breads with cracklings, the bits of fat left over after rendering lard. You can find my take on an historic Italian crackling recipe here.

7. Lard crackling spread

Spread made with lard cracklings is a tradition in many parts of Eastern Europe. It is delicious atop sourdough bread, dotted with garden herbs or finely diced vegetables. Here’s a version I like to make in my kitchen:

Egg and Lard Crackling Spread

200g lard cracklings

2 onions

5 hard-boiled eggs

salt, pepper

optional: additional lard

optional: any spices or herbs you’d like to add

Fry the onions with the lard cracklings, adding the optional lard if the cracklings do not give off enough fat to keep the mix moist. When the onions have taken on a nice colour, turn off the pan and leave the mix to cool.

Once the onions and cracklings are cool, add them to your food processor along with the hard-boiled eggs, generous amounts of salt and pepper and any other spices or herbs you’d like to include. Blend until smooth.

Spread on toast, make sandwiches, top tomatoes with it – and remember you can garnish with extra herbs or spices (I love sumac on top!).

If you have a good quality source of pork back fat and you haven’t yet made your own lard, you’re missing out! Check out how to do it using a slow cooker in my article here.

And if you’ve got a way of using lard that I haven’t talked about, do let me know!

We use lard as our main fat. I fry with it, add it to breads, use it in casseroles, line bread tins with it and it is my go-to fat for spreading on bread. I choose lard over tallow (which is made from cow fat) for three reasons:

1. I prefer the flavour
2. I can more easily access good quality pork back fat than I can fat from a cow
3. I find the softness of lard at fridge temperature much easier to work with in the kitchen and at the table.

It is not difficult to render lard (even in the smallest of kitchens) providing you are organised. It does take time though! Expect the process to take 6 to 8 hours. Although you need to be available throughout that time, the actual hands-on time is very little.

I use a slow cooker to render lard as I find it the simplest equipment to use for the process. My medium-sized slow cooker can fit 4 kg (8 pounds) of pork back fat. From that original 4 kg of fat I usually end up with around 2 kg of lard. This lasts my family 4 to 6 weeks.

There are two ways of rendering fat – the wet method and the dry method. The wet method, which utilises water, creates a much more fine, ‘clean’ and deodorised fat, but is very time-consuming and fiddly. The dry method does not use water and is easier. I have used both methods in my kitchen but have settled on the dry method for almost all of my rendering. It creates a fat that stores well in the fridge for weeks (or the freezer for months). This article will talk you through the dry method.

How to Render Lard (in a Slow Cooker)

Be choosy about your source of back fat

All fat is not created equal. The type of food an animal eats directly impacts nutritional profile of its fat. In addition, if animals are treated with antibiotics or their food treated with fertilisers and pesticides this will show up in their fat and therefore your lard. Choose pork back fat from a farmer that uses traditional feed and doesn’t routinely use antibiotics. It’s also worth looking for fat from traditional-breed pigs – newer breeds often have non-traditional fat profiles that don’t ally with ancestral eating.

Consider asking for your fat to be ground

Back fat needs to be cut up into small pieces before it can be rendered. Doing this for, for example, 4 kg of fat can take over an hour. If you ask your farmer/butcher to put the fat through the meat grinder, you will save time – being able to put this straight into your slow cooker with no further preparation needed.

Equipment

• Slow cooker commensurate with the size of the back fat you wish to render.
• Utensils to aid with straining, cooling and storing the lard.

We use:

• large metal spoon
• large metal bowl
• colander that fits inside the large metal bowl
• medium metal bowl
• oven gloves
• lots of freezer-safe containers to hold the lard

Process

1/ If your back fat has not been minced, dice it into 2cm squares.

2/ Put the prepared back fat into the slow cooker, close the lid and turn it on. Slow cookers vary greatly in their temperatures – mine is not particularly hot and I start my lard on high and then after four or five hours turn it to medium. You may need to use different temperature settings depending on how hot your slow cooker runs.

Tip: Slow cooker’s often take a long time to heat up. If you are short of time and want to speed this process up, put your cut-up back fat into the ceramic insert of your slow cooker and place this insert into your oven on a medium heat (150°C) for an hour. This kick-starts the process of fat release.

3/ Prepare your equipment and space to receive the liquefied fat. I find a metal colander resting inside a large metal bowl the easiest method.

4/ Watch the heating fat. When you see a good amount of liquefied fat around the edge of the solid back fat, drain this liquid from the slow cooker into a bowl using a colander to catch the solid pieces of back fat so you can then return them to the slow cooker.

Tip: If you are processing a lot of fat, it can be hard (particularly at the early stages of the process) to tip the entire contents of the slow cooker through and into the colander. A way to get round this is to use a large serving spoon to spoon out half of the solid fat into your colander and allow it to drain, before temporarily removing what’s in the colander to another bowl and then pouring the remaining contents of the stock pot through the colander. You can then return both sets of solid fat to the slow cooker to continue the rendering.

5/ Repeat step four again and again (I tend to strain my fat every 1 to 2 hours). The the solid fat will get smaller and smaller and you will get more and more lard! As the lard builds up in your large metal bowl test it for temperature and when it has cooled down sufficiently transfer it into containers for the fridge or freezer so that you are leaving your large metal bowl free to collect more lard from the next straining.

6/ As this process goes on you will notice the solid fat starts to give off a lot less fat – the rendering is nearing an end. The more times you render, the more you get better at judging when to stop. Do a last strain of the lard/back fat and turn off your slow cooker. Leave it to cool before cleaning.

Cracklings!

In the process of making lard, nothing need be wasted. After your last straining you will have the remains of the original pork back fat in the colander. These are cracklings! They are delicious and have been used in foods by cultures worldwide.

Here are some of my suggestions:

If you want to eat some immediately, heat up a cast-iron pan and cover the bottom of it with some of the still-warm cracklings. Stir them as they brown and crisp up further. More fat may be released from them and you can drain this from your cast iron pan as you’re cooking. Serve these cracklings on fresh bread, just-cooked vegetables, scrambled eggs, stews…they are delicious on almost everything! Whilst they are still in the pan you can enhance them with fresh garlic, herbs, salt and pepper.

You can keep the remaining cracklings in the fridge for at least 10 days. I pack them into a glass container and then every evening for days after our lard-rendering session, I heat up my cast-iron pan and crisp up several spoonfuls of cracklings that become a treat to accompany our supper.

Bread with cracklings is amazing! There are many recipes for traditional breads using the leftovers from lard all over the world. In Italy, where I live, cracklings are called ciccioli. Here’s a fun recipe for my own sourdough take on an Italian bread using ciccioli – Pane con Ciccioli, and here’s a recipe that I love from Naomi at almostbananas.net for Slovakian lard biscuits (you can hear Naomi on two Ancestral Kitchen Podcast episodes – #23 about traditional Slovakian pig butchery and #49 about the glories of Slovakian food!).

Cracklings also make incredible spreads – something they’ve been used for traditionally in Eastern Europe for many generations. I love to hard-boil some eggs and put them into the food processor with an equal weight of lard cracklings plus lots of salt and pepper. The resulting spread is delicious and keeps in the fridge for ages! (You can hear me talk about this spread on the patron-exclusive podcast Kitchen Table Chats #16. To get access to this and much more, join Ancestral Kitchen Podcast’s Patreon community at the Companionship level here)

Here are some favourite ways to enjoy it:

• Lay lardo on top of warm crunchy sourdough toast
• Top home-made pizza with lardo and fresh rosemary
• Wrap a date or an almond in a fresh, wafer-thin slice of lardo
• Place slices of lardo on or around just-cooked vegetables, on top of mushrooms or wrapped around asparagus so they begin to melt
• Melt lardo slices in the cast iron pan and cook vegetables or an omelette in the fat
• Crisp slices up on the stove, pour the released fat over your food and enjoy the crunchy, salty remains

The ‘original’ lardo is Lardo di Colonnata. Colonnata is a tiny hill-top town in Tucany that is famous for its marble quarrying. It is said to be the place where Michelangelo got his raw material! The local marble has, for many centuries, been used to make large basins in which pork fat would sit, covered in salt and herbs, for months, slowly transforming.

You can replicate Lardo at home, without needing the marble basins. Neither do need a place to hang the cure – a fridge will do fine. It’ll take several (completely hands off) months, but it’s completely worth it! Here’s how:

Ingredients:

• A 1kg piece of fresh, high-quality pork fat, rind still on, ideally around 3cm thick

• 250g coarse sea salt

• 15g black peppercorns

• 8 large or c. 12 medium garlic cloves

• c. 8g fresh rosemary (this is about 4 sprigs)

• 4-5 bay leaves

• 20g fresh, or 10g dried, juniper berries

(You can use other herbs; sage and thyme also work. You can also mix spices like coriander and cumin into your cure.)

Equipment:

• Something to wrap the cure-covered fat in. I use several large pieces of parchment/baking paper secured with elastic bands, but you could also use a large zip-lock plastic bag

• Something to cover the curing fat in when refrigerating to keep out light. I use several dish towels, but a large black plastic sack would work too.

• Something to weigh the fat down with whilst it’s in the fridge. I use three empty olive oil bottles, filled with water.

• A space in your fridge that you can spare for several months. I use part of the meat drawer.

Method:

1. Clean the pork fat with water and pat dry.
2. Prepare the herbs: Mince the garlic very finely, chop the rosemary and bay, crack the peppercorns and smash the juniper berries.
3. Mix the salt with the prepared herbs.
4. Place the pork fat on or in the medium you will cover it in – i.e the parchment paper or the ziplock bag – and rub the cure onto its surface really well. Use all of the cure and work on getting it to adhere to the fat. The whole of the area needs covering for good results.
5. When you are happy that you’ve covered the whole surface, secure the wrapping. When using parchment paper I usually wrap the fat well with the original piece and then place it on another piece and wrap that at 90 degrees to the original piece before securing it with two elastic bands. If you’re using a ziplock bag, squeeze the air out and press the sides to the fat before sealing.
6. Wrap this parcel in something to keep out light – several dish towels or a black bag.
7. Place the covered lardo in your fridge in a spot where it won’t be disturbed. Weigh it down by placing something heavy (I use water-filled olive oil bottles) on top of it.
8. Wait. How long you wait is up to you and something you will learn your personal preference for over multiple lardo-making sessions. Most people say three to six months. I have left lardo two months with success and also four months. It’s strong enough for me like this. I haven’t gone the full six months yet!

When it’s done:

When you are ready to eat, remove from the fridge, unwrap and dust off the cure into your sink/a bowl. Although here in Italy, you can buy lardo with a crusting of cure still attached, at this point I tend to go further and wash off the remaining cure, patting dry the lardo. I do this as I find it too salty otherwise.

How to cut:

With the lardo rind-side down, slice it as thinly as you can stopping your knife when you hit the rind. Continue until you have as many slices as you require. Then turn your knife so it is horizontal and free these slices from the rind by cutting across the fat, just above the rind.

Traditionally the exposed rind is then folded back onto the fat (but it’s always been to solid for me to be able to do this!).

How to store:

Store, kept in the original or a newly-created wrapping in the meat drawer of your fridge. It’ll last for months and months like this. When you’ve enjoyed it all, use the remaining rind with strong scissors and use it to flavour a pot of soup!

The Weston A. Price Foundation published my article Fact Or Fiction? Uncovering The Fats Of Italy’s Past in the Summer 2022 edition of their journal Wise Traditions.

It was a deeper dive into my previous piece ‘The Myth of Olive Oil Use In Italy‘. If you want to know the truth about Italian cuisine, have a read of both.

It also includes two recipes – one for a traditional lard-based tomato sauce, and the other for a sourdough spelt bread with lard cracklings.

I’d love to hear what you think, your own stories of Italian ancestral food and also let me know if you make the recipes!

Fats derived from pigs were in daily use in virtually all Italian kitchens until the 1960s and ciccioli (the cracklings left over after rending lard) were often added to doughs. Here, I’ve taken the idea and had fun, making it into a sourdough spelt rolled loaf with added garlic and rosemary.

This should be cooked in a 1lb loaf tin as the abundant fat often leaks out during the baking.

Pane con Ciccioli – Lard Crackling Bread

Ingredients:

For the dough:

135 g wholegrain spelt flour

135 g white spelt flour

54g ripe sourdough starter

5g salt

3 tbsp lard (plus extra, melted, for glazing, if desired)

c. 110g water (adjust this based on the needs of your flour)

For the filling:

140g cracklings from rending lard

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

Generous handful of fresh rosemary

Generous grinding of salt and fresh pepper

Method:

• Mix the salt and spelt flours together in a bowl. Dot the lard onto the top of the mix.
• Stir the sourdough starter into the water and then pour the mix onto the flour/salt/lard.
• Bring all of the ingredients together and work with your hands to create a smooth, ensuring the lard is well-distributed.
• Leave this for a bulk fermentation stage. For me, at 22C/72F this is usually about 5 hours, performing a stretch and fold every hour. You can cut this short and refrigerate it overnight to work on again in the morning.
• On a well-floured board, Roll out the dough into a large oval (roughly 45-35cm)

• Dot the ciccioli (lard cracklings), garlic and rosemary over the dough, leaving a border of an inch or so clear around the edges.
• Fold in the long edges of the dough and then roll it up (like a strudel) leaving the seal at the bottom.

• Leave to proof. You can do this by putting inside a lidded (or covered) loaf tin and leaving at 22C/72F for an hour or two.
• Preheat your oven to 230C/445F. Slash the top of the loaf and glaze the loaf with some gently melted lard if desired.
• Cook at 230C/445F for 15 minutes, 190C/375F for 35 minutes with the lid on, then a further 10 minutes at 190C/375F with the lid off.
• Leave to cool slightly (if you can!) and then enjoy!

If I ask you this question, I’m guessing a list starts forming in your mind. And I’d lay money on olive oil being close to the top. Italians have been cooking with and consuming olive oil since…well, since the dawn of time. Italian food just wouldn’t be Italian without olive oil, right?

That’s what I thought.

And who’d blame me? I grew up following Italian recipes from contemporary cooks; all used olive oil. I’ve known about the ‘wonder’ of The Mediterranean Diet and its use of this monounsaturated fat since my early health research. Here in Italy the trees, fruit and oil are all around me.

But it turns out I was wrong.

If that’s how you’ve viewed Italy’s relationship with olive oil, you’ve been misled too.

Here’s the truth:

In the decades leading up to the 1950s virtually all Italians cooked almost exclusively with lard.

How did the lie that olive oil was universal become ‘truth’?

Turns out the food traditions we internalise as true, that saturate our modern world, are malleable…even inventable.

Our tastes, choices and ‘knowledge’ are moulded, mostly unbeknownst to us, by the market. The promise of financial compensation and the possibilities inherent in global trade and marketing give groups of individuals the incentive and power to literally change our perception of what is true. Once changed, once ‘in vogue’, these misinformations are perpetuated through mass media, becoming part of our cultural heritage.

In the case of olive oil and lard, the post-war movement of populations from country to city, the growing search for a culprit for heart disease and the possibility for individuals to profit by the creation and selling of olive oil came together to propel olive oil into a position of ‘health champion’, with Italians being told to switch to it. From there, the export and trade possibilities rode roughshod over any inconvenient truth that the Italian fat of choice in the decades prior had been lard.

It’s only through talking to real people and learning what they actually did that truth can be uncovered. At a local level we have the possibility to do this with our own families (as long as we learn their traditions before they’ve been changed by our rapidly evolving world). But when these traditions have been carried out in a part of the world far from us, the truth is not so easily accessible.

Thankfully sometimes a person comes along who takes the time to interview and document traditions first hand. That’s what Karima Moyer-Nocchi’s book Chewing The Fat is all about. Karima is an American living in Italy – her book is a collection of interviews of 18 women in their 90s from incredibly varied walks of life who grew up in Italy before and during the world wars.

The information that these women revealed, through Karima, has completely changed my view of olive oil and its place in Italian history.

From Olive Oil Myths to Lard Truths

Again and again these women talk about how they used pig fat in the form of lard (and the cured version, lardo) everyday in their kitchens.

Women who hardly had enough food to survive, women who worked the land every day, dawn till dusk, women who were born into incredible wealth. Women from the Austrian and Swiss influenced north and women from the starkly different deep south. They all routinely used lard, not olive oil.

Pigs were a way to survive, their slaughter, come winter, providing meat yes, but most importantly providing fat. Fat to eat, fat to cook with, fat to preserve, fat to make soap.

As you can see from these quotes, all words from women Karima interviewed, Olive oil ranged from a local foodstuff used sparingly to something people even didn’t know about.

I’ve been rendering and using lard in my kitchen for almost a decade. I’ve done this not only because I love the flavour and how easy it is to cook with it, but also because it has always seemed the most environmentally sound and healthiest choice.

Despite doing this, I’d always had the ‘but the long-lived Italians have always used olive oil’ doubt in my mind. Reading the testimony of these women has given credence and history to my instinctive choices.

And it’s also reinforced in me the need for us all to question, at a deep level, what is ‘sold’ to us through media channels around our food. The profound social, political and cultural implications of the misinformation around the Italian use of olive oil is, I guess, just a microcosm of what is happening in the rest of our food world.

Real food – food good for us mentally and physically and environmentally – is not produced in factories by profit-driven companies. It is grown and reared by individuals who care, offered to the community and then kitchen-crafted into delicious, health-giving food. This cycle is full of connection; real people, and when we sit at the table to eat, our bodies and souls are truly fed.

Sometimes, the processes involved in cooking from scratch in this way can seem overwhelming. I want to make it as easy as possible for you. Because it’s worth it.

So here are 5 simple ways to start cooking ancestrally.

1. Make stock

Why?

Stock is magic – it’s making something deeply nutritious out of ‘waste’. Saving and cooking bones gives us a tasty base for many other dishes but also feeds us with essentials minerals and the incredibly-healing gelatin.

The simplest way:

Buy whole organic chickens. After you roast them, save the bones (along with any bits of skin/tendons attached) in a bag in the freezer. When you have a good amount of bones put them in a big pot with water, an onion, some celery and a carrot and bring this to the boil. Turn it down as low as you can and cook it so the water barely shows any bubbles for at least 12 hours.

Once it has cooled, drain the contents of the pot through a sieve. Drink the stock or use it as cooking liquid for grains such as rice, or as the base for a stew.

2. Eat organ meat

Why?

Organ meat is the most nutritionally dense part of an animal. And yet it is part of the 50% of the animal that routinely never makes it to our shops. Ancestral cooking is about respect – and eating all of an animal respects the sacrifice made.

The simplest way:

Out of all offal, liver is often seen as the most accessible. Chicken liver is milder in taste than that found in other animals. Get hold of some chicken livers, chop them and add them to a dish such as bolognaise or chilli.

3. Embrace fat

Why?

Fat is amazing. It carries flavour, making dishes taste good, keeps us fuller for longer and also carries essential vitamins that aren’t so easily available elsewhere – like A, D, E and K.

The simplest way:

Choose foods that haven’t had the fat stripped away. Buy whole milk, chicken with the skin on and red meats that are marbled with fat (if you can’t find fatty beef cuts in your supermarket, use the opportunity to seek out a local farmer and buy directly). Include these whole foods in your meals.

4. Ferment

Why?

Our gut, and the biome it contains, is the master controller of our health. Anything we can do to support the good bacteria that live there is, I believe, one of the most important health steps we can take. Fermented foods are packed with probiotic good bacteria.

The simplest way:

Make sauerkraut. All you need is a cabbage, some salt, a large glass pickling jar with a lid, a knife and a bowl. Click here to be taken to a post talking you through how.

5. Soak your grains

Why?

Grains contain a chemical called phytic acid. This stops you absorbing minerals. If you soak grains prior to cooking, you can deactivate much of this phytic acid. And in the process you soften up the grains too, which’ll make it easier for you body to absorb them.

The simplest way:

Think about what grains you want to cook the following day. Before you go to bed, put these grains into a bowl, cover generously with slightly warm water and add a couple of tbsp of an acidic liquid (lemon, vinegar, whey, yogurt, sourdough starter). The next day, before you use the grains, drain and rinse them. Cook them as normal.

If you’ve got question on any of these steps, feel free to contact me. You can do so via my Instagram account @ancestral_kitchen or by commenting below.