To quote the maid who worked for Miss Jolene - "She's real mean - mean for sport".
Regarding Crisco - I understand why people use it, but it doesn't make anything tasty. This may be heresy, but I simply will not eat any piecrust or frosting made with Crisco. Digestible, my foot. It gives me horrible indigestion and leaves an undissolvable coating in my mouth that I literally have to brush away immediately. And why would anyone make "buttercream" cake frosting with Crisco anyway as most supermarket and commercial bakeries do? Yes it is more "stable" and less heat sensitive than butter, but piecrust and frosting should be all about flavor. And being me, I have a friend who fancies himself the best cook in the world and has tried repeatedly to trip me up insisting that his piecrusts are not made with Crisco and uses canned frosting on all his cakes telling me there is no difference. Of course it isn't any worse than one of my friends that eats canned frosting with a spoon...
Now baking or frying with real leaf lard is unsurpassed for flaky and flavorful piecrust and beautifully fried foods. Sadly the white processed blocks of Armour or whatever brand sold in the supermarkets bears no resemblance to the real stuff. One can sometimes find fresh lard at a good Italian butcher and the real thing is amazing. It is not quite solid and is creamy/transluscent in color.
There is a website (Flying Pig Farms) where I believe you can find real leaf lard, but am not sure if it is already rendered or if you have to do it yourself. My mother used to tell how her mother rendered her own lard over a wood fire in the backyard of their Brooklyn apartment house because she didn't want the house to reek. One of the privileges of being the janitress, I guess.
