Lard as a war product and an object of myths
Lard ... How much is in this word, isn't it? And with this word, a rather grotesque image of a chubby neighbor from Ukraine has been steadfastly arising for a long time, with just a palm-thick slab of salts, a bottle of organic liquid, stuffed with corn, and so on.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is not even included in the top ten countries in the world for the consumption of lard. This is a fact, albeit a contested one. And in Ukraine, the pig became a friend of man historical standards not so long ago.
And the most interesting thing is that at the dawn of its appearance in the human diet, lard was exclusively a military product. Thousands of three years ago.
However, let's go in order and plunge into history.
The ancient Romans were the inventors of lard. This is an indisputable fact, although the Italians did everything in their own way. It is difficult to say who the Romans spied on the recipe, there are several versions. In general, the Romans were masters of appropriating and remaking something for themselves, no worse than the modern Chinese. So the versions that they spied on the recipe from the Phoenician pirates or Carthaginians have a right to life. Although they could have thought of it themselves. After more than three thousand years, it is difficult to judge.
However, the evidence is provided by the very ancient preserved salting containers, the age of which exactly corresponds to the given figure. That is, marble baths are really about three thousand years old, and they are still in use.
How was the matter? It all started in a small town on the Ligurian coast of Italy, where marble was mined. The town of Colonnata was the center of marble quarrying for Rome. The extraction of marble and its transportation to Rome (about 400 km, a decent distance for those times) required people. Those who get marble, deliver it to the port in Marino di Carrara, load it on ships, bring it to the port near Rome, unload it, load it on carts and bring it to Rome.
That is, for such work, a bunch of slaves and sailors were required, whose existence was not very different from that of a slave. Accordingly, cheap food was needed to feed this small army.
And so the dish was born, which was named "Lardo di Colonnata". "Lardot of Colonnade". "Lardo" was made from Chinto Senese, this is a breed of Italian pigs, nimble, such black pigs, agile and lively. Sounds like the word lard, doesn't it?
The pigs from Kolonnata regularly provided meat and lard. With meat, everything is clear, And fat ... Well, do not throw it away! The marble in Colonnade was simply heaps of, the caves in the quarries gave enough space, and with constant humidity and temperature.
After cutting the carcasses, the bacon was placed in these marble troughs, after rubbing the bottom and walls with wild garlic, sprinkled with sea salt, the sea was only 11 kilometers away, plus local mountain herbs. More than three hundred recipes have come down to our times!
Salted for a long time. They killed the pigs in the fall, the bacon lay in the baths until spring. And in the spring, just the product was very much in the subject. Moreover, it was stored without problems.
Naturally, the ground soldiers were also interested in lard. By that time, "Lardum", that is, rendered pork fat, had already appeared. "Lardum" or in our opinion, lard (aka lard), was also distinguished by its calorie content and ease of storage.
Under Emperor Justinian the Great (483-565), lard became an official product in the Roman legions. And the legion, you know, are no longer slaves in quarries or rowers on ships.
Well, it so happened that two hundred years later, somewhere in the first century AD, aristocrats also paid attention to lard. And to the huge marble slave baths in the caves were added small patrician baths. The essence is the same, just for the aristocracy the marble was polished more carefully, the fat for the patricians was the most selective. The most suitable was fat from the ridge, no more than 4-5 cm thick.
Such "aristocratic" lard was salted for up to 8 months, and was served not just like black bread and garlic, but with baked vegetables as a side dish, with anise and rosemary.
Since a pig is such a self-propelled and unpretentious stock of meat, it is logical that the herds could move by self-propelled where it was needed. And since the herd was driven, it made sense to use it to the fullest. So, after slaughter, the carcasses were singed with straw (familiar!) With laurel leaves. A truly Roman way of singing carcasses, giving meat and lard an additional smoky flavor.
And from Ancient Rome, along with ships and marching legions, fat moved around the world. If we look at the map of the Roman Empire, it will become clear that the country where lard became a kind of symbol was clearly out of work in those years. The first to taste the charm of "lardo" are modern Romania, Germany, Britain, France, Spain.
And then it went on. And basically, among the peoples there was a bloodless (except for pigs) seizure of entire territories with fat.
In the Middle Ages, everything was exactly the same with lard. A great contribution to the development of salmon preparation was made by monasteries, where monks in every possible way perverted the recipe. It was reported that the most successful were the Benedictines, who bred new breeds of pigs and worked on the recipe. Salting pre-boiled lard with spices - this just came from the monasteries of St. Benedict. Saint Benedict (okay, not himself, but the Charter of his Order) allowed his monks to use both lard and ghee. The Benedictines worked tirelessly in this field.
Eggs with bacon, which is spoiled, but bacon - this is also the work of monks. British.
To the east, lard also went with the legions, and later with the Goths and Huns. Barbarians before bacon were also very eager guys, therefore, having ruined the Roman Empire, they adopted the recipe for cooking bacon.
And from the ancient Germans the word "Schmaltz" remained in the language. Melted fat. Generally, first goose, but then pork. It is clear where the "lard" came from, which means the same thing in Russian, Polish and Ukrainian?
So, gradually, it turned out that lard is a very, very useful product that can be stored for a very long time. And not as nasty as corned beef or dried meat. Plus lard is an excellent preservative for all kinds of pates, terrines and other delicacies, and lard has become an indispensable part of sausages, sausages and wieners. And in general, modern European cuisine is nothing without lard.
The Hungarians, by the way, also picked up useful recipes from the Romans when they had fun with Attila and presented the world with Hungarian spig and cracklings. And greaves, you see, this is a very significant contribution to world culture.
The idea of salting bacon on the territory of the future Russia (Kievan Rus) was adopted from the Europeans, back in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries of our era. There are mentions in the annals of the campaigns of Prince Oleg, who went to Byzantium and took tribute there, and in general, everything that he liked.
The idea was good, pigs were also found on the territory of Russia, so bacon took root here too.
But with Ukraine, more precisely, the territories that later became Ukraine, not everything is so blissful. Considering that many monastic documents (such as receipt orders for tithes) of the XNUMXth century and beyond have survived, it can be concluded that pork was not particularly found in Ukraine. Future Ukrainians preferred poultry, beef and lamb.
It's funny, but the fashion for pigs in the Ukrainian lands was brought ... by the Russians!
At a much later time, at the end of the XNUMXth century, when Russia moved towards the Dnieper, mastered the Left Bank and began to look to the other side. Having built towns and fortresses, placing garrisons there, the Russian command found out that it was necessary to import (more precisely, drive) pigs, since there were practically none of them in Ukraine.
No, there was enough food on Ukrainian soil, but lard was needed. A strategic military product that went to lubricate a firearm weapons, blades of cold weapons and water-repellent impregnation of shoes. It was a very valuable product, which was not very profitable to deliver the consignment note from Russia. The barrels took up a lot of space, and cheap and high-quality lubricant was consumed very quickly.
It was easier to start raising pigs at the garrisons. Which is exactly what happened. The local population willingly joined this exciting earnings, fortunately, there were absolutely no problems with feeding the pigs.
Raising pigs in huge numbers solved the problem of cheap and natural lubricant for cannons and handguns of the Russian troops. Nobody protested against meat either; it was bought from Ukrainian producers at the expense of the treasury on a regular basis.
It was not so nice with bacon. For salting, as expected, salt was needed in huge quantities. Salt on the territory of Ukraine was mined in Transcarpathia in the XNUMXst-XNUMXnd centuries BC, but the Solotvinskoe deposit was located quite far from the bases of the Russian troops and on an unfriendly territory.
There was still a lot of time before the discovery and development of the Artyomovsky (1876) and Slavyansky (1878) deposits, so salt was mainly used for this business from the sea, from the southern regions adjacent to the Black Sea.
It can be said that Ukraine became a lard producer during the reign of Peter the Great. It was then, when the Black Sea Fleet began to be built, when the Azov Wars and the war for the Crimea began, then in the articles of the army supplies and fleet the item "corned beef pork in barrels" appeared, and the governors of Ukrainian cities began to receive orders for supplying the army at the expense of the treasury - only then Little Russia / Ukraine really grunted in different voices.
Today, there is a cult of fat on the other side. So-so a reason for boasting, but ... If a product has been elevated to the status of a state cult, there is nothing to be done. We'll have to endure.
But the birth of this cult through the efforts of both the Ukrainian and Russian sides gave rise to a terrifying number of low-standard myths. Like blankets made of bacon, with which the Cossacks allegedly covered their cellars so that the Turks and Tatars did not get to them. Allegedly, Muslims, for whom a pig is a forbidden animal, disdained pork and lard.
Hard to believe. You know, a military campaign or a raid in those days is not like a voyage to the Crimean beaches today. There were no McDonald's or Burgerkings at every gas station.
As it seems to me, after studying some sources, all these tales about pork as it is are fairy tales. When there is a raid, there is no time for the Koran. If you eat pork, you’ll eat pork and you won’t go anywhere, because the Koran, of course, is an important thing and an indicative set, but the fight tomorrow, in conditions of some starvation, did not bode well.
And that is why, I am sure, there were not very many who preferred death to "clean" in contrast to life "slightly soiled" with pork. And in conditions when there are long distances from village to village - and even more so.
In general, in combat conditions any piglet will become a rabbit. And then you can repent about this, for without sin there is no repentance.
In addition, if again about the raids, so many historians in their works come across information that the Tatars and Ottomans, having “visited” villages on foreign territory, usually left them empty. Completely. Taking away also food supplies, everything valuable and - most importantly - the labor force in the person of the population. The population in such raids was driven away by everything, with the exception of those who either managed to escape and hide. And pork in all forms and lard, quite naturally, were taken away clean. The prisoners on the way also need to be fed with something, the path to the Turkish lands was very long.
So the "daring tale" about the Cossacks, who fought with pork against the Turks, will remain a fairy tale.
Yes, in the territory of today's Ukraine, pigs were bred and salted lard. And the lard was drowned. But purely for military-economic purposes: lubrication of guns and guns, flavoring cereals. Plus, the same corned beef was the best canned food on long campaigns of both the Russian troops and the Zaporozhye kurens.
So - the war of pork against Muslims is a myth, and a rather stupid one. But if someone likes it, let them repeat nonsense, the Internet will not stand it.
Now about the tastiest bacon in Ukraine.
Well, it's debatable. I would say that there it is more close to the classic one. Either the pigs' gene pool is better preserved, or something else, but in Russia today there is a dominance of bacon pig breeds. They grow faster and will be thicker.
Yes, in 2015 I got acquainted with "premium lard" from the outskirts of Alchevsk. 14-cm thick and divine taste, the very thing that is also called "soap". The most delicate product that melts on your tongue and with which it is unrealistic to stay sober and on your feet.
However, I will say that in the city of Grodno, lard is made not only as well, but even better. Although two years passed between the tests, the Grodno lard made an indelible impression on me. Actually, together with Grodno "star" moonshine. Our film crew has never been so close to cataclysm all the time.
But lard in / in Ukraine is not a strategic product that is everywhere. By the way, according to statistics, Ukrainians eat it much less than Russians. Ukraine is not even in the world top 10 in terms of fat consumption per capita.
Yes, the Ukrainians themselves say that this is because there are many pigs in private hands and it is more difficult to count them than in Europe, where you can easily count every piece of bacon.
I agree. Ukraine is quite difficult to account for. And in the hinterland, of course, every year they eat herds of pigs that are not included in the general statistics. But all the same, this is not a reason to raise lard into a cult. We salt, and no worse. And Voronezh, and Oryol, and Belgorod bacon are in no way inferior to Ukrainian.
And in Europe, if anyone is interested, Denmark occupies a solid first place in the use of bacon and bacon (well, that's how they all get in the way, infidels!). The second place is Germany. Hungary, France and Italy are fighting for the third.
No wonder at all. For the Europeans have a thousand-year-old culture of production and use of lard. And there are also a lot of masters who know how to pickle according to all the rules.
In general, it is interesting how a product of long-term storage, obtained from pigs and hogs, focused on unpretentious slaves and galley rowers of ancient Rome, in fact, a product with a militaristic bias, became a delicacy that can decorate any table.
However, salted bacon is included in the Russian IRP. Eating it is still a feat, but melting fat for the same kulesh is quite acceptable.
In principle, despite its antiquity, bacon was and is a soldier's best friend. Because it is high in calories, it does not take up much space and this tasty thing is well-cooked bacon. And you don't need to make a cult out of it, as some do, you just need to use it. With pleasure.
Photo: puzzleit.ru
Information