[Sca-cooks] Schmaltz

[Susan Fox-Davis]

Chicken fat is just not as necessary for all-purpose cooking fat/bread spread since the invention of pareve margarine.  [Pareve = neutral for purposes of milk vs. meat meals.]  Between that and the modern medical knowlege that animal fats are bad for you, schmaltz' days were numbered.  Let's face it, the traditional Ashkenazy diet has probably killed more Jews throughout the centuries than Hitler and Haman combined, and much more insidiously!  This, says the woman who just had a last-hurrah meal of kishka and stuff before seriously contemplating the low-carb Atkins
diet again. Urgh. Soy blini anybody?

Selene Colfox

Devra at aol.com wrote:

> I suspect that schmaltz isn't used as much as butter because there aren't a lot of convenient commercial sources for it, the way there are with butter.  I have seen it sold in jars (1 C?) in the long past, but can't remember seeing it recently.  You can of course make your own; it just requires some attention to keep the fat from browning.  And it keeps moderately well in the fridge.  It's not that chickens don't have enough fat--you ever pull the loose fat out of a capon/oven stuffer roaster?  Schmaltz was traditionally used to fry things like potato pancakes.
>
> Hard to do reduced cholesterol with it, though.
> Devra