Got Lard? Get Soap!

Say you're doing a lot of butchering and you've got a few dozen extra pounds of lard or tallow. Sure, you can bake a few pies or whip up some bird feeders to impress your friends and neighbors, but you may find you're still burdoned by a weighty mass of fat.

What's an inventive, enterprising soul to do?

My friends, the answer is soap. Home-brewed soap is terribly economical, endlessly customizable and all-natural. Better yet, soapmaking is a hobby that captures an element of danger, thanks to the potentially corrosive lye one must use to transform your chosen pile of nasty fat into beautiful bars of sweet-smelling goodness. (Go watch "Fight Club" again for a reminder of lye's effects on human skin.)

Whether you're going the All-Vegetable route, or you're more into Animal Fat Soaps, you can find all manner of helpful hints for managing your kitchen chemistry experiments at Miller's Homemade Soap FAQs. Also check out the kickin' Soap Cookin' tutorial on Craftster.com.

Lest you need yet another compelling reason to make soap, I'll remind you that it may just be your patriotic duty to learn this ancient art. After all, "when the lights go out on Western Civilization, where will you get your soap?"