what is vegetable shortening

[sidey]

what does it look like, where do you get it? Is it in a box?

It's a solid vegetable fat, I think they use it more in the USA than the UK.

You can use butter or margarine instead, if you can't get hold of shortening.

Is this not Trex (or the like)? It is found with butter and lard in supermarkets.

isn't it another name for vegetable suet or something similar?

No, it's not suet. It's solid, comes in a block.

is it hydrogenated fat? or just solid veg oil?

[boggles] oh, that's cleared it up.