Is it possible to buy suet in America?

Sure. It’s in the grocery, in the meat department, or a butcher will have it. You can also buy it packaged as bird food.

From your local butcher; it is the pruned or trimmed fat from beef kidneys.

Ah, thanks. So talk to the butcher in the grocery store. I wonder why it isn’t sold packaged?

And I meant to put in there about it not being for bird food. Although, I guess my birds would probably like it.

As @gailcalled said, proper suet is fat trimmed from beef kidneys, a lot of what is sold at grocery stores is not true suet and will not make a good pudding (if that’s what you’re going for). I’ve never tried to get it myself, but I know that it is at least available some places. Find a real independent butcher, if you can, and ask. As a last resort ask the butcher at a higher end grocery store.

Reminds me that i have to buy some bird seed for the poor frozen birdies outside my window.

Out of curiosity, what are you going to make? Haggis, pudding? Do you know how to safely render it down?
I make pseudo suet with my left over bacon grease and I add seeds for the birds, but I was sure you weren’t interested in that.
Pseudo suet. I like that. Psu, psu psudeo. :-)

just recently I saw the Shoppers in my area was carrying it, not sure I’d vouch for their quality though, some of their store brand meats have been iffy. Have to agree with those above, your best bet for quality is to try and find a local butcher or any grocer that does their own butchering, maybe try asian, european, latin markets too provided you have them around. Interestingly, if you have a Costco near by they might be able to accommodate you, I’ve managed to get some very good cuts of prime meat by asking in the back, never asked after suet though.

@Trillian Psuet? I don’t really know much about it, although I did read something a little while ago about rendering it.

I really don’t have any plans at the moment, although I do have Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook which has some interesting things to try.

I’ll ask my local grocery store butcher. If that doesn’t work maybe I can find an indie.

I wonder why it isn’t sold packaged, though.

@mrentropy I think it’s all about economics. Most beef comes to stores cut into relatively small pieces instead of as whole sides of beef or whole cows. The meat packers are only interested in volume, and there just isn’t enough demand for genuine suet for them to bother packaging it.

@mrentropy, nice handle, by the way. I’ll guess that it isn’t packaged because there just isn’t a market for it. But I can see the potential advertising now. “Are you tired of cutting up that fat all the time? Slicing your fingers off because it’s so slippery? Want to make a haggis but the butcher is closed? STOP your worrying! Now there’s Quick suet! You just pop open the lid and there’s 8 oz of quality suet inside, ready to use! Comes in super 32 oz size and three flavors; regular, spicy nacho, and barbecue! And our newest addition, travel suet. take some with you in our individual serving sizes, perfect for an after school nosh and stocking stuffers.” Yeah, maybe I should go lie down…

@Snarp I reckon you’re right. Which means that my grocery store probably won’t have it. Geez, with all the cows in Texas you’d think it’d be easier.

@Trillian Thanks. I believe that, technically, haggis is illegal in the US. At least, you can’t import it if it’s properly made with the lungs. I’m not sure what’s wrong with lungs, but there you go. There was a fellow in Scotland who was planning on making tinned haggis to sell over here, but I don’t know what happened to that.

From what I’ve read, though, buying packaged suet in the UK is as easy as going to the local market.

I just bought suet bird seed. :)

So I googled it and found out that apparently the Department of Agriculture has decided that lungs are unfit for human consumption (funny, TB used to be known as consumption)..It also said that white tailed deer in the US are known reservoirs of the disease. I guess that’s a good reason no to eat lungs. Not that I was in line, hollering and banging my fork on the table to begin with… Link below.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/pubs/TB/TBMain.htm

As a half Scot, I can say there is no great loss from the absence of haggis in America. :P

Wait human recipes? I buy it in cubes for birds…
Oh, America.

If you are in Texas, try a mexican market. A lot of the ingredients used n traditional Scots recipes are the same ones used in traditional mexican recipes. You can also buy pre-packaged suet on-line, but you have to be careful about how much flour you use in your recipes because the pre-packaged stuff has flour added to stablize it.

And if you REALLY want to make hagis, substitute the lungs for tripe. Same texture but still a bit gross to look at.

I get it from my butcher. You can substitute leaf lard.

Yep, I’ve done that. Any hard beef fat works. And just for the record- i don’t make hagis. It’s gross. But i love clootie dumplings. :)

I wasn’t planning on making haggis. And I don’t remember what started the haggis bit. But I had gotten “Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook” and I noticed that many recipes in there had suet. But I may give a new Mexican meat market a look see. If not, I’ll just go with something else.

@dpworkin Leaf lard?

Yeah. Ask your butcher.

My butcher? Do I look like Alice?
I don’t actually have a butcher. I’ll have to try the new Mexican meat market and see if I can find someone.

Do you have a higher-end Supermarket? Some of them will be able to get you leaf lard. Or if their are enough Jews in your town look in the Yellow Pages for a Kosher Butcher.

@dpworkin According to a 2000 article in the local paper, Austin had one. Hopefully the place has gotten a bit more progressive since then.

In 2006 there was… one. And the meats were frozen and/or packaged.

There’s a good chance there is… one.

At least the choice will be easy.

The spanish word of suet is sebo. You might still have to ask the butch at a mexican market, but if you ask for sebo, they will know what you want.

The suet in Brittish cooking makes the finished product lighter than most American fat-rich backed goods. They usually boil it rather than baking it and the suet has a higher melting point so rather than blending in with the batter right at the beginning of the cooking process, the suet sort of melts into it after it has already set. They usually end up with a texture similar to an english muffin. This is why it’s not a good idea to use commercially prepared lard instead; it’s just too soft.

@ClosetLurker Thanks. That’s good to know :)

I have used suet from the supermarket for years—I usually ring the service bell a few days before I want it and ask the butcher to put aside a couple of pounds. I do not use the bird suet already packaged because the butchers are not as careful with that— it is supposedly NOT for human consumption.

Once I get it home, I freeze the suet, after cutting out any scraps of meat, or connecting tissues. Freezing makes it so much easier to grate. Ordinary suet does take a little longer to melt compared to kidney suet, it is that much harder and not so brittle or flakey. The only time I asked our specialty organic butcher to get me kidney suet, he forgot and put me in a real bind for my home-made Christmas puddings—a Brit who knows from suet!!