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I understand a bit more about animal fats and what they're called now that I've been around paleo blogs for a while, but are there any good primers on animal fat? Just basic stuff that people who haven't used or been exposed to lots of animal fat might not know, like what terms correspond to fat from which animal, which part of the animal, etc.

For instance:

What is tallow? What is suet? Does any other kind of "beef fat" have a name, like the stuff I skim off my stock?

Is lard a specific type of pig fat? Is bacon grease lard? Why isn't it called that?

Are there fancy names for other kinds of fat? Say I'm vacationing in Iceland and I want to try whale blubber. What's that called?

Does lamb fat have a name?

If there's not a primer maybe someone could make one or we could start one here. If there is a primer, please point me to it. Thanks!

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2 Answers

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I don't want to reinvent the wheel so I'll defer to Mark Sisson's great guide to animal fat. It should answer (99%) of your questions.

"A Primal Primer: Animal Fats"

It runs through the most common fats: beef tallow, lamb tallow, lard, goose and duck fat, and chicken fat/smaltz plus ghee. It gives you the name for tallow prior to rendering (suet) and covers the Saturated:Monounsaturated:Polyunsaturated breakdown of the fat.

On the bacon grease question, I believe its call grease as opposed to lard as it is literally the grease left over after cooking the bacon while lard is rendered from solid lard (with leaf lard on the kidneys being most prized since its near flavorless).

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That's excellent! Thanks. I'd still like to hear from anyone about more "exotic" things. – Shelly Mar 3 2011 at 13:11
The article says tallow is "relatively mild," but the one batch I made came out with a strong flavor and smell. What is normal? – Carl_Stawicki Mar 3 2011 at 13:19
I'm not an expert on tallow, but I think it depends on where in the animal the tallow comes from as well as what animal it comes from. Lamb tallow is always strongly "lamby" and I know personally I could not eat it. Beef tallow for me has been strong when compared to lard or a coconut oil, but not an overpowering taste. It worked best for certain applications where a subtle beefiness compliments what's at hand. The animal fats I personally prefer are Duck Fat and Ghee. Duck fat is the supreme fat for roasting. Ghee for most other things. – Logan Mar 3 2011 at 13:34
Carl, was it slightly burned? That will make it strong tasting and smelling. – Ambimorph Mar 3 2011 at 14:17
I made it in a slow cooker. ~8 hours on low. I would not describe the taste and smell as "burnt," it's just really beefy. It's ok as long as I use it in an applications that calls for the strong flavor. – Carl_Stawicki Mar 3 2011 at 15:23
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I spent an afternoon once reading all about every kind of fat on none other than Wikipedia. Scroll down to the bottom to see a list of links to edible fats and oils:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suet

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