What is this thing called lard?
We had been planning this weekend for months.
Just the two of us. We left
the curtains open so the neighbors could see everything we did.
They wouldn't approve, but they would no doubt want to watch it all.
We had moved back into this Puritanical country almost a year before.
We had lived in
Saturday morning. Everything in the kitchen had been prepared. A half-kilo of white beans had been soaking all night in cold water and they were now soft and swollen. It was time.
She pulled her hair back into a pony tail and pulled her white apron tight around her waist. I drained the beans as she held a colander over the sink. I tried to go as slowly as possible, but sure enough the bean juice soon started splashing all over her brand new apron. She looked up at me with a grin.
"Take your time," she said. "No need to rush."
We then placed the beans gently into a large pot with 3 liters of cold water. My wife peeled the carrot slowly, turning it ever so gently, while I spiked an onion with cloves. These went into the pot, along with the bouquet garni and a bay leaf. Then we both took turns peeling off the pieces of fresh bacon from the 150g mound and dropping them into the water one by one.
As this needed an hour to simmer, we turned our attention to more lascivious pleasures. I pulled out my deep cast iron pot and my wife bent over into the fridge to get to the real good stuff. In one hand she held a 150g jar of goose fat and in the other 750g of mutton on the bone. The goose fat melted quickly in the pan, oozing in all directions. Into the whitish liquid, I gently laid the meaty bone. Within no time, the mutton was sizzling and the grease spattering everywhere. My wife gasped for breath while the hot drops of lard delicately singed her skin.
I pulled the meat out just in time. It was well browned but not burnt. I left it aside to cool off. While my wife took care of the two garlic cloves, I separated the folds of two well-chopped onions. The onions were in the pot for a good five minutes before the cloves, but the trick is not to count. You have to feel when the time is right to be able to synchronize it correctly. No clock in the world can tell you when the cloves are ready to hit the pot.
My wife stirred the lardy mess by herself with a thick wooden spoon that we only used for this sort of special occasion, while I held the two big tomatoes in my hands. Smooth and firm, I felt their weight in my palms and played with the hard stem under my thumb. 150g of all natural goodness that I wanted to sink my teeth into right away, but I resisted the temptation. Once diced, I tossed them into the pot for a couple minutes and then reinserted the meated bone. A little seasoning and then we let it all simmer on low heat for damn near an hour.
I pulled the meat out again, and my wife poured the juice all over the beans. I stuck in the 150g of well-prodded pork sausage while my wife cut the mutton into pieces just large enough to pop into your mouth.
We discarded the flaccid carrot, onion and bouquet garni. Then let the lardy contents bubble up into the open air, letting off the steam until there was barely enough liquid to cover the beans.
The kitchen was so hot and heavy the windows had steamed up completely, impeding the view of all the would-be voyeurs. The smell was overwhelming and we could hardly control ourselves. Our mouths were overflowing with saliva and our bellies were screaming out to be satiated. At last, the succulent, lard-swollen bean feast was ready. As we sat down to eat, my wife looked at me with a devilish look in her eye.
"Maybe next time we should invite some friends over to share this with!"
