ISSUE 54, FATS & OILS, Part 2: Suet
Suet
If you lived in the more northern portions of North America perhaps you recall the winter ritual of affixing a slab of suet in a wire mesh cage to a yard tree to supply birds protein in the cold weather. In the countryside householders knew how to render the fat of beef into soap, sausage, or mince for Christmas Mince Pie. But suburban housewives heeding the newspapers’ dire warning about consuming fat, tossed it in the garbage pail. As early as 1914 the U. S. Department of Agriculture was distributed pamphlets on “Suet Conservation.”
What is suet? The hard fat that surrounds the kidney and loins of beef and mutton. Mutton suet has always run a distant second in terms of availability. When freshly harvested and rendered over heat, it possesses minimal flavor. When left to age, or “cure” it develops a pronounced tang that lovers of bland food find too aggressive. But this imparts substance to the sausage one is grinding.
While the South preferred lard to suet for frying until the rise of Crisco and Peanut Oil, suet serve equally well, and was plentiful in parts of the South where cattle were raised. Kept in a ceramic crock, the rendered suet was spooned into a skillet. It was deemed hot enough for frying when it could ignite a kitchen match. After a frying session, the liquid fat was strained through cheesecloth and used again.
Suet pudding is perhaps the most famous dish associated with the ingredient. Most of the classic American recipes use cornmeal, molasses, suet, and spice to fashion a rich, homey pudding. In Great Britain, savory suet puddings akin to game pies have greater acclaim. Venison, ox cheek, and boar are now the most common.
Perhaps the most peculiar suet creations were mutton suet candles, an alternative to wax in the antebellum period. I’m afraid the odor of the burning fat would make studying by such light too distracting.
Always available at a good butcher and in many well stocked grocery stores, it is still rarer to find than lard. Unlike lard which takes pains to identify the breed of pig from which the lard derived (Mangalitsa, Guinea Hog, and Ossabaw being particularly prized), there is in general no breed source information found with suet. You can always inquire if you are curious.