Tallow

Basic Information

Tallow is, essentially, rendered meat fat which is a solid, waxlike substance at ambient temperatures. Historically this was an important by-product of the meat industry and has become only slightly less so with the introduction of petroleum based products and other synthetics.

For a start, it was a key source of candles - cheaper than beeswax, but not as bright or clean-burning it would still serve for common use. It was also a key ingredient of soaps and polishes, cosmetics and topical medicines such as salves and ointments. As a food-grade material it could be used for frying, used to preserve meat by "potting" or processed into other forms of cooking fat or, in a pinch, eaten as a high energy food in its own right. Tallow also served as a mechanical lubricant for wheels and bearings. Tallow specifically intended for food use is typically higher end stuff and may also be referred to as lard, suet or schmaltz¹.

Rendering consists of boiling waste meat and skimming off the fats and oils that float to the surface. It is, like tanning, a dirty and foul smelling process that people want to live upwind and upstream of wherever possible and is usually low status and - where relevant - restricted to unclean castes. It is, however, vital to most economies that practice it, leading to the usual cognitive dissonance that applies in these situations. Renderers are (in)famous for hovering up all sorts of dead things, even those that the animal food industry may not touch and, in the right circumstances, may be into unlicensed funerals as well. Likewise, food industry by-products such as slush² and dripping³ are historically likely to end up in the process, rather than blocking the sewers as they do in the modern era.

Whale oil is essentially the same material, extracted from a much larger animal. Not to be confused with spermaceti, which was also oil, also extracted from a whale, but very different stuff. Similar oils can be extracted from fish - including the oolichan "grease" that was a significant trade good in the Pacific Northwest - but they are more of a related substance than the same thing.

See Also:

• Adipocere
• Bog Butter
• Candle
• Rushlight

Sources

Bibliography

The Price History of English Agriculture, 1209-1914, Gregory Clark University of California, Davis, October 9, 2003 - source of the tallow prices quoted below. The Foreign And Colonial Quarterly Review, Volume 3, p.347 - notes that in 1843, boiling a good, fat sheep could provide 15-25lb of tallow. For interest, the tallow boiler offered 15d per sheep all found (presumably subject to inspection) and looked to make money from selling sheepskins besides (and likely anything he could from the meat and bone waste). Likely the sheep would have been sheared prior to sale, allowing the farmer the sale of the fleece.

Game and Story Use

• For all your dungeoneering needs, remember that the cheap candles also serve as grease for pulleys, door handles and stone slabs and can also be eaten, cooked with or fed to monsters. Also for polishing your boots, waterproofing you equipment and dressing your burns⁴.
• Also, if you need to cook, remember that the axle grease off the wagon will do (see Sharpe's Waterloo for an example).
• In some RPG systems, barrels of fat are likely to be treasure (this is an example of the disconnect between - say - Harnmaster and D&D … in one, four barrels of tallow are set dressing, in the other, they are the treasure⁵).
• Remember the industrial district when designing your towns - no-one likes them, but they need to be there. Especially if the town or city also has a significant slaughtering trade⁶.
  • Also the potential for monsters attracted by the amount of meat and fat being processed.
  • And the thieve's guild dropping their victims into the rendering pots.
  • This will also mean livestock being driven into town - with potential for guarding, herding and sabotage work.
• On the other hand, anyone from a farming background before the mid to late C20 is likely to have at least some idea how to do this, so if your PCs want to engage in a bit of impromptu rendering when faced with a dead monster…
• In a fantasy setting, humanoids like orcs might well end up in the rendering trade … low status work, but for the not-too fussy eater there's plenty of lumpy meat skimmings to snack on⁷.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld included naturally occurring underground deposits of tallow resulting from a natural disaster entombing huge numbers of large animals. Or possibly one very large animal, which also caused the disaster in the first place …
• The food grade stuff was widely used in northern Europe and Eurasia into the very recent past as a cooking fat and spread - only with mass refrigeration and improved trade has it been replaced with vegetable oils and butter.
• This is also the stuff used to make pemmican and related foods.

Footnotes

1. Technically lard is rendered pig fat, suet can also be used for unrendered fat and schmaltz (or at least the type found in English speaking regions) is derived from birds, but colloquial use can blur boundaries.

2. The supernatant fat that floats off meat that is being boiled

3. fat that … drips … from meat being grilled, roasted etc.

4. Not recommended in the modern era when we have much better ways of treating them. Back in the day? You could do a lot worse…

5. Medieval sources show tallow prices at between 1d and 4d/lb (usually 2-3d) … where 1d was a typical wage for a day labourer…

6. Expect this, if, for example the city is a major port and so prepares a lot of meat for victualing or is a centre of the leather trade.

7. These used to go for petfood up until the recent past…