cooking oil and fat

[Stonehead]

I render my own lard. It makes by far the best pie pastry. And our boys love the cracklings. One non-cooking use for lard, or indeed any leftover fat, is as cutting fluid when drilling or cutting metal. I've also turned up a few uses for lard in Victorian books, but I don't know that I'd want to try them myself, e.g. a thick application of lard was recommended in one book as a treatment for genital herpes! A mixture of fish oil and lard was suggested for waterproofing leather, but I did wonder about the smell on a warm day. Another, more complex, waterproofing grease had a mix of something like lard, turpentine, beeswax and possibly lanolin. It might be more socially acceptable than the fish oil and lard mix.