SC - rendering chicken fat

[Maggie MacDonald]

At 10:47 AM 10/26/00 -0400,Nicholas Sasso said something like:
>The method I am using is heating water in quantity (say three gallons) and 
>then adding ground tissues to the pot.  The tissues render and sink a 
>little, leaving the fats floating on top.  Skim the fat off, press the 
>tissues, and you got lard/tallow.  The water serves to regular/diffuse the 
>heat and prevent scorching.  Cool stuff.  Anyone got medieval references 
>to how to render?  I haven't looked through Menagier or Scully's stuff 
>yet, and that is my weekend project.
>
>niccolo difrancesco

While I can't quote the medieval sources, I do have a transcribed oral 
history from one of my g-g-grandmothers, who was trained in the European 
fashion to be a Housekeeper, and worked for one of the royal families in 
Denmark before emigrating to America.

One of the items in her oral history was how she boiled/rendered the fat 
for soap three times. She would boil it, cool it, pour off the water, then 
scrape the bottom of the solid chunk of fat, then boil it again. After 
three times it was proclaimed clean/good enough to make soap from.   She 
also used fat for winter storage of precooked pieces of sausage, rabbit, 
etc. I am wondering if she didn't also use the same fat for that purpose 
(as it was pretty darn clean at that point).

Regards,
Maggie MacD.