Animal Fats

A deep history exists between humans and fermented foods – in fact fermentation may be the earliest form of food processing our ancestors engaged in.  

Our ancestral interaction with fermentation provides a platform from which to explore the lessons that fermentation can offer in the contemporary attempt to create a food system that is ecologically sustainable.  The simple interaction between people, food, and the environment during prehistoric fermentation represents a human/environment interaction that is characterized by a simple, subtle, and sustainable manipulation of ecological processes for human benefit. 

Home fermentation has been gaining popularity in recent years, and it’s no surprise; this ancient form of food processing has the ability to improve flavors, increase nutrient availability, detoxify food, increase shelf life, allow bread to rise, and produce alcohol. Participants will have the opportunity to learn the varied fermentation processes that produce lacto-fermented vegetables, cultured butter, and sourdough bread.  Bill Schindler offers a variety of custom tailored courses that can range from a survey of vegetable, dairy, grain, alcohol and meat ferments to courses focused specifically on any one of the above.  The primary foci of these courses are wild fermentations 

Students will learn about the:

1. Attributes of fats from various animals and from different cuts of the same animal,
2. How to render and process them and
3. How to incorporate them into a number of flavorful, nutritious recipes. 

Participants will:

1. Make butter,
2. Prepare pig fat,
3. Render lard, and
4. Make the best tasting, healthiest French fries they have ever tasted!
5. Roast marrow bones,
6. Produce marrow butter,
7. Prepare goose confit, and
8. Prepare lardo (a type of salumi)