Back in the early 80's when I raised pigs, their return trip home from the
processing plant was accompanied by 2 huge buckets (I don't know how many
gallons they held) of the rendered lard.  The plant people told me I might
want to render it some more.  I remembered the small blocks of lard from my
chidhood that some of my relatives used, but this in no way resembled that.
It was kind of an off-white and what I would call a thick liquid, not quite
semi-solid.  They sat in my kitchen for untold months because I never knew
what to do with the stuff (other than make lye soap which I never got around
to experimenting with) and it didn't look or smell very appealing to cook
with.  Just before finally lugging them out of the house,  I took another
look inside and noticed the volume looked like it had reduced some and the
entire quantity looked much firmer.  When I ran a finger through the top of
it, the texture was like a very thick, heavy cream, quite a bit more
semi-solid.  If the awful smell was a valid indicator,  I'd say it had long
gone rancid.  --I really liked those pigs, especially Ears who had learned
to lay down and roll over when we twirled a stick in front of him.  I had a
hard time eating him/them.  I learned from that never to pet an animal we
were going to eat.

Theola