Scan Fat: An Appreciation Of A Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes Depicted By Jennifer McLagan Readable In Audio Books

history, tidbits, and, of course, recipes, I enjoyed the explanations about the different fatty acids and the information regarding the optimal balance between omegaand omegafatty acids.
The history of some of the foods discussed was interesting, Many of the recipes take so much time, that if you work full time and have kids, they are just not feasible.
Some may run away in sheer terror at the idea of reading a cookbook talking about FAT, . . There I said it FAT in all of it's glorious forms but I am here to tell you that fat is our friend if used right and this book delves into that idea full on.
It breaks itself down by type of fat with anecdotes and science as well as fantastic recipes, To those who are not afraid of food, This is for you. I'm reading this one little by little and it is great, Chock full of information, recipes and little tidbits although some of the sidebar stuff is hard to understand out of context, I may consider buying this sometime.
It definitely makes me wish I had a good source of unadulterated fats around and makes me want to search them out.
So far I'm in the mood for shortbread although I wonder how well a GF shortbread would work and lard fried potatoes.
I can't wait to read the rest, . . Perhaps I'm biased in my rating because I love the title, It used to be my nickname, Affectionately. I think I hope.

In seriousness the author writes well and her enthusiasm for fat is infectious, When I was a teenager, influenced by the lowfat diets of thes, I cut out a lot of fat and didn't eat deep fried foods for quite a while.
And as expected, one loses a taste or desire for it so that fried food eventually tasted unappealing,

The author says in the introduction:
"We have never been more obsessed with diet, exercise and cutting the fat out of our food as we are in the new millennium , and never have we been fatter or unhealthier.
Our approach to food is schizophrenic: if we enjoy a meal that has a lot of flavour, and therefore fat, we punish ourselves with a salad and a lowfat dressing from a bottle.


There is something fundamentally wrong when, in a society of plenty, we fear what is on our plate, seeing our food as poison or alternatively as medicine.
I would argue that we are not just frightened of fat, but we are also fearful of pleasure, Eating is essential to life, and it is a pleasure that we can share with friends and enjoy in public, It should be a happy experience, not a tortuous trial, How did we come to this"

My younger self could relate to the above, Fortunately, I think I now have a pretty healthy relationship with food and pleasure, I even run a cookbook club where we spend one Sunday a month indulging in wonderful food that we cook for each other.


Having said that, there was a recipe for tamales in this month's Mexican book that called for Lard to be whipped till light and fluffy and a couple of us felt reflexively uncomfortable with this.
Such was the strength of the ingrained message that saturated fat is bad for us,

It's therefore quite helpful to have a book like this one to lure us back to a balanced view.
The author includes lots of brilliant pieces of trivia like Bog Butter yes butter that was stored in bogs, some for a couple of thousand years.


Or this one on Salo:
In Ukraine, pork fat, called salo, commands such a special place in the national psyche that poems and songs have been written about it.
. . At thefestival in Lutsk, in northwestern Ukraine, the competition winner swallowedkg of salo in justminutes, without the aid of bread or vodka.
After his winning performance, he told reporters he could have eaten more!

I doubt I will ever like fat nearly as much as that.
Nor would I even want to do so, However, this book has made me crave soaking my crusty bread into the fatty juices of a deliciously roasted chicken or a slice of the fragrant fat from a rib roast.


Mmmm delicious! This was a fascinating read with beautiful photos to boot makes the fattiest piece of lamb look lovely, Makes you wonder why we ever stopped eating healthy fats and replaced them with nastytasting substitutes like canola oil,

Now I really really want to try making my own lard, And frying chicken in it, Yum. This book islegitimate. Fat is the most misunderstood component of our diet and you can see that in virtually every weight loss program there is.
But knowing how to use fats well is a million times better than not knowing and removing them from your daily intake.
Besides, fat tastes good, and amen to the Lord making it clean, This book is full of great information on what fat is, how it works in our bodies, and how to use it in the kitchen.
This also might be the best food porn I've ever seen, Though I liked Fat more than Ms, McLagan's previous book, Bones, it suffers from many of the same issues I had with Bones, a I wish more work had gone into finding new recipes rather than digging up random lore, quotes and sayings, all of which lent absolutelyto the final product.
b Many of the recipes were recycled classics or direct interpretations of someone else's dish as often noted in the headnote.
More of the recipes appealed to me in Fat and I learned more about the process of using various fats in the kitchen, but overall the impression left on me was only OK.
Get thee to a butcher, . .
Rarely does a cookbook have you scrambling to the phone to put in a special order for fat, But this gloriously evocative paen to fat in all its guises will lead you to do just that, In no time at all you'll be rendering your own lard and whipping up all manner of porky, goosey, beefy, buttery, fatty treats.

Informative. I am making better decisions regarding fat and my needs for food LOVE, Ohhh, the butter chapter. Fantastic. In line with Pollan and all today's foodies, McLagan says out with the oils and hydrogenated fats, and in with the animals fats and butter.
She gives some nice background to the dishes and concise but helpful reviews of all the fats, She gives really basic details about how to find, treat, an use the fats, but I found a good deal of recipes to be a little over my head.
That being said, if I had a few hundred bucks to spend on kitchen utensils I could probably make a lot of this stuff, and it all sounds very tasty.
As a selfproclaimed hoarder of bacon grease amp duck fat, I certainly did appreciate this giant book, If you're unsure of how to use fat trimmings, grab this book, In our little farm house, fat is not misunderstood, It's cherished and prized and utilized to it's fullest potential, Because you just never know when you'll need a good, clean, hunk of fat to bring out the best flavor in your meals.
I'm into most anything that espouses a common sense approach to diet and nutrition right now and this book fit that bill.
It's mostly a cookbook with a side of nutritional is that a word history to break up the sections of "fats".
Side note: I was kind of surprised at how many recipes involving flour were in this book, If you're glutenfree, this would be important to note that aboutof the recipes aren't going to be compatible for you without significant tweaking and substitutions.
This is literally an entire book about how good fat is and all I can think about is the fact that Jennifer McLagan has now blessed us with a recipe for butter flavoured ice cream “For all the Jack Sprats out there youre wrong!”
This is the dedication for my new favorite cookbook, Fat by Jennifer McLagan.
Im not alone in loving this work the James Beard Foundation gave the coveted “Cookbook of the Year” award to this title.
More than a simple collection of recipes, McLagan included extensive food histories, nutritional information, worldwide food folklore, and stepbystep instruction on everything involving fat.


The book is divided into four different sections butter “Worth it”, pork fat “The King”, poultry fat “Versatile and good for you”, and beef and lamb fats “Overlooked but tasty”.
Each section has apage spread giving an overview of that types of fat included within the chapter, For example, the beef and lamb fats chapter touches on suet, bone marrow, marbling, tallow, and dripping, An extensive introduction, bibliography, and index round out the structure of the book,

McLagan truly believes that one of the problems with the modern diet is its fear of fat, She starts developing this thesis in her dedication, expands on the sentiment within the introduction, and continues to discuss specifics within the beginning pages of each chapter.
“Fat, we reasoned, was why we packed on the pounds and got ill, so we banned animal fat from our lives” page.
She makes a good point as a whole, North Americans are still obese, unhealthy, obsessed with exercise and eating less animal fat than ever before.
The animal fat sources that she examines are rich in monounsaturated fats different beasts than the hydrogenated and polyunsaturated

fats found in an average American diet.
McLagan not only looks at the nutritional benefits of eating more fat, she also examines the reasons why its so pleasureful.
She includes many interesting “fat” quotes and phrases in the margins of the pages, reminding us how fat wasnt always such a taboo thing to be called.
I loved the variation of sources Shakespeare sits next to German folklore next to Dorothy Hartley,

McLagan highlights many fascinating history tidbits about fat, Did you know that the Indian Mutiny ofwas, in part, due to a misunderstanding between Indian sepoys and the East India Company over the loading procedures of the Enfield rifle The design required the sepoys to bite off the casing before pouring out the gunpowder, but the casings were said to be greased with lard pork fat or tallow beef fat, distasteful to both Muslim and Hindi soldiers.
Rebellion ensues, and the British government has to take over control of the subcontinent, Other interesting anecdotes include the origins of the name “Fat Man” for the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan, history of Bolladagur day in Iceland, and discussing the chemistry of the soap lady at the Mütter Museum.


But this is more than just a book that preaches at us at its core, Fat is a cookbook.
With its gorgeous photography, I wanted to eat everything on the pages, even if it was just a picture of lardo and persimmons.
The endpapers are really a magnified picture of caul fat, delicately lacing the contents of the book, McLagan prefaces every recipe with great instructions and stories, And there are a lot of decadent recipes in here Fat FatCooked Fries, Sauteed Foie Gras with Gingered Vanilla Quince, Bone Marrow Crostini, ProsciuttoWrapped Halibut with Sage Butter, and a ridiculously mouthwatering Salted Caramel Sauce.
Cooking with real fat sources doesnt seem easy many recipes require a great deal of preparation work, but McLagan assures us that the payoff is worth the effort.


Of course, theres a waiting list a mile long for this book at the library, so I had to give up my copy too soon, well before I was able to cook any of the recipes for myself.
But Ive not so subtly hinted about my love for this book to my friends, plus I have a birthday coming up One can only hope.
I promise there will be a roast goose for any generous giftgivers in the future, though, .