The Secret of a Southern Cook’s Larder

Are you sick of diet-this, diet-that, low-calorie, no cholesterol, olestra-loving, lettuce-overloaded cooking?

Healthy, healthy, healthy. How much can you stand?

If you feel you are going to go insane if you have to eat salad one more day, we’ve got the book for you. “Cooking With Lard” (Longstreet Press, 1996) will make you feel indulged, guilty, perhaps even nauseated.

“Cooking With Lard” is the creation of three born-and-bred Georgia good ol’ boys: illustrator David Boyd, whose work was featured in the book “You Might Be a Redneck If . . .”; Mike Smith, owner of a Newnan, Ga., restaurant called the Redneck Gourmet; and Mike Steed, a syndicated humor columnist.

The trio said they were compelled to pen this history of lard and recipe book because it is “a culinary way of life that is fast disappearing.”

Perhaps not. It just may be that it’s the lard aficionados who are fast disappearing. Those arteries don’t hold up forever.

On praises for “Cooking With Lard”:

“From both a health and entertainment standpoint, this book is a killer.”

“The kind of food Mom used to cook before Dad had the bypass.”

“Every recipe in this book will make your pelt shine for a week.”

On the new American cuisine:

“As we stand across the line of middle age, we recognize that many of our faculties are diminished with the inexorable process of aging. We can’t jump as high or run as fast. Our eyesight is not as keen. We reasoned our taste buds had lost a step as well. Then it dawned on us. It’s not a loss of capability of our taste buds. It’s the food police. They have taken nearly all the pleasure out of our sense of taste. Why? Because lard has fallen out of favor.”

On biscuits:

“Here is a pretty good test for the consistency and texture of a good biscuit. Pour some molasses or better yet, sorghum syrup, in a saucer. Put some butter on the saucer and mix the syrup and butter together until it is completely blended. Now you are ready for the test. You should be able to drag the biscuit through the mixture without it falling apart.”

On vittles:

This is from the chapter “Stuff You Can Actually Cook but We’re Fairly Certain You Won’t.” Includes: Possum Roasted With Sweet Potatoes, Pickled Pigs’ Feet, Headcheese, Potted Pigeons, Scrapple (involves a hog’s head), Fried Hare or Rabbit, Roast Squirrels.

On cookware:

“You had to have lard to properly season a new skillet. Lard was smeared all inside the skillet, and it was put in the oven or on top of the stove and heated. It took several repetitions of this procedure before the skillet could be used with any confidence or consistency. It was never washed with soap and water, it was just wiped out gently with a wash rag.”

Warning:

“This publication is not recommended by the surgeon general of the United States.”