Lard does make better pie crust than vegetable shortening -- no joke. Near DC, we had some friends with a farm on the water near Annapolis. They had some cher

Lard does make better pie crust than vegetable shortening -- no joke. Near DC, we had some friends with a farm on the water near Annapolis. They had some cherry trees, sour, red cherries, that they had cared for properly and, then, a lot of fresh cherries. So I offered to make a cherry pie. They had no vegetable shortening but did have some lard; so I used lard. I cleaned, pitted, and cooked the cherries with sugar and corn starch, partly guessing on quantities from a poor cookbook. Then for the pie crust, I just did what I'd done a few times with shortening. The lard based pie crust was much more delicate -- the raw crust tore during handling! But the resulting pie was terrific, especially the crust! If can get some fresh cherries and lard, go for it! Or just make little cherry tarts!