I know this is an old thread but I had this same conversation with my grandmother a few years ago and have been trying to research this very thing.
My grandma grew up in Minnesota during the Great Depression. She told me how they would keep meats for long periods. Some meat was salted, some was smoked, some in an ice house, and others were even rendered in fat.
The best description she could give me for preserving in fat/lard at the time was that they would do it only when they had a large amount of meat and always before winter. She told me this was normally a whole pig.
They cut out as much of the fat as possible and boiled it in a big pot. She kind of gave the impression that you had to use the animals own fat to do this.
The meat itself would then be fully cooked separately. They would then take a wooden barrel, pour some of the boiled down fat into the barrel and then start placing the cooked meat in and then more fat.
They would alternate fat - meat until the barrel was about half full.
When they needed something they just went out and chipped off what ever they needed and reheated it. The fat from that was then poured back into the barrel.
They could keep a barrel of meat for months. She too said this was her favorite over the salted and smoked meat.
I wanted to add that growing up, my grandma always had a big coffee can next to the stove that she poured her fat (Mostly pork fat) into and used that fat to cook everything in (Pork fat seemed to be the go to). It would sit for days and would harden. She would just scoop out what she wanted and heated it up again.
Now none of this is heart smart in any way but....
I am glad I am not the only one interested in the old ways....
Vox
