Lard Soap Experiment

Sarah Ryhanen is outside in the snow, rendering lard from her neighbor’s pigs in a big copper pot over an open fire to see if it can be turned into soap.

This is part science experiment, part ritual, and part response to the threat of tariffs.

Susan, Sarah’s mom, is waiting in the soap factory, ready to transform the rendered fat into soap scented with black pepper and Atlantic cedarwood. 

From filtering hot fat to cutting fresh soap, this episode digs into big questions: 

What would it mean to source more ingredients locally? 

Can we separate necessity from greed? 

And what happens when we take capitalism out of the equation and focus on what actually sustains us?