Discovering pork fat

I have always had an ambiguous relationship with animal fat. I love creamy desserts and high fat cheeses and butter, but kept my distance from other types of animal fats. Not the meats. Just the fats. And yes, I know the fat makes it taste good but I always had to cut out the fat before eating that nice roast or steak. When I was growing up, a mistaken bite of a piece of beef or pork fat would make my stomach immediately turn. It would take all my will power not to throw up immediately.

This relationship has changed over the years. I am now a huge fan of sausages of all kinds. That’s what happens if you live in Spain, I suppose. Yesterday I turned another corner. I bought pork fat. I told myself I was just buying it to season my cast iron pan. Vegetable oil was just not doing the trick. Turns out I only needed a tea spoon of fat for seasoning my pan and now have a small container of Berkshire pork fat sitting in my fridge. Not wanting it to go to waste, I used some to make my friend polenta and egg this morning.  Oh my. What was I thinking all these years? The crust on the egg, the smells, the flavour, every aspect of my meal was enhanced by that small dollop of pork fat. This can’t be good. Or can it? I’m sure I can find health benefits for pork fat somewhere….

Print PDF