About 4 years ago at Christmas, I got fed up buying pie crusts already rolled out. Yes, I'd do that to make French Canadian Tourtiere (meat pie) at about 6 at a time. Too much work to make that many pies by hand with any consistency. My sister visited and brought my late mother's recipe for the tourtiere and 100% lard crust. I failed miserably at making it, hence, the use of the store bought shells. The costs just became too much one day for these miserable tasting shells and one of my issues of Cook's Illustrated magazine made reference to that same article PJ Hamel refers to, vodka and all, and I made my first blueberry pie that tasted out of this world. However, I do have access to lard and do mix it at 1:1 ratio with butter and ever since then, my children fight over the last piece of tourtiere; and blueberry pie. I read this blog with great interest including all comments and encourage people to use lard over shortening; the flavour is worth the effort.

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