Fats are an indispensable component of food. In the early modern period in Europe, besides animal fats like lard, bacon, suet, butter, and concentrated butter, vegetable fats were used, as a rule olive or nut oil (from walnuts), regionally also poppy-seed oil, flaxseed oil, rapeseed oil, and hemp oil. Until the late Middle Ages, the use of these fats in Europe was determined not only by their availabilit…