Food writer and stylist Jennifer McLagan has just published a new book called “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes” and Salon has the requisite promo tour interview with her today.
The book is both cookbook and essays, so for those of you who like to read cookbooks (and you know who you are) this offers quite a lot of substance, as befits the topic. The Salon interview I’ve linked to focuses in on McLagan’s contention that animal fat is not only NOT bad for you, it’s actually GOOD for you. Animal fats, she says, contain crucial fatty acids that help the body absorb vitamins, reduce cholesterol, and have disease-fighting properties. Vegetable fats, on the other hand, are the trans-fat-laden, indigestible death bombs that have become the staple of the American processed-food diet.
In the interview, McLagan singles out pork fat as the best all-around animal fat for general purpose cooking. It has the most neutral taste of the common animal fats and is suitable for tasks as disparate as making pie crust, filling sausage, adding texture and mouthfeel to cooked meats, or acting as the medium for deep frying. For once, Emeril Lagasse was right about something; pork fat does, indeed, rule.
I just spent the morning at NE mobile and I flicked through it.. I didn’t buy it because I felt all the recipes in it I had gleaned from other cookbooks and she didn’t really offer me a new spin. I also wasn’t blown away by her historical, cultural and culinary commentary on the various fats.
I was sad, because I had been anticipating its arrival but I felt rather *meh* about it all when held in hand..
On the other hand I did buy Alinea at 40% off and still wrapped in plastic, I feel like that will feel a bit like opening a package of porn mage from the local when I finally tear it open.
I also bought a book called Bacon by James Villas and The album Au Pied de Cochon which have me far more hot and bothered than Fat.
Sorry
I’ll be interested to have a look at it myself. Have you read her other book, the one about bones?
i own Bones, I like it a lot. Great recipes, great food history, an excellent book that I would recommend.
Fat isn’t a *bad* book, it’s just that I felt I already knew the recipes and the info, but perhaps that is my jaded over 300 cookbook library talking. *job hazard..i know!