Why old guys sometimes smile.

I grew up a poor kid on a subsistence farm. Sort. of. Actually my Dad also had a paycheck producing job, but much of our food came from the farm.

In those days before health czars demonized fat, lard was a staple in every kitchen. Every home cooked with lard. Lard was cheap and was sold everywhere. But if you lived on a farm and butchered your own hogs, you also made your own lard.

In the butchering process, the meat was trimmed of fat to the extent practical and desirable. When trimming, some bits of lean meat were trimmed along with the fat. In keeping with the old hog butchering rule that you use everything but the squeal, these trimmings were not discarded. They were the raw material for the making of lard.

The process was pretty simple, actually. The pork scraps were heated in a big kettle until all of the fat melted. Fat was then drained off and filtered through a cloth. This clear liquid was poured into tins - lard cans, if you will - and allowed to cool. That, then was lard, ready for frying, etc.

What was left in the kettle were the scraps of lean pork, now largely fat free and cooked to a crisp. We called them "cracklings". Actually we said "cracklin's", and found them to be tasty snacks.

Here in the Southwest, where Spanish language is in common use, the word for "Crackling" is "chicharron". And, mistakenly, they refer to them a "pork skins". As a kid, we first skinned our hogs and that skin had its own use. We sure didn't eat it!

Now, no longer a by-product of making lard, in New Mexico Chicharrons have become a specialty food, and people who "cook" them call themselves Chicharroneros! Imagine!

Saturday morning, they actually had a "chicharron cook-off" a competition to see who made the best chicharrones! And more such cook-offs are planned around the state! I wonder what they did with the lard, which has now become the by-product?

It kinda reminds me of when we drained the whey from the curds of sour milk. We fed those curds to our poultry on the farm. It helped fatten the turkeys for our holiday feasts. We usually saved some curds, added a little fresh cream and a bit of salt and called it cottage cheese. Today, cottage cheese has become another specialty food and is a staple for people not wanting to be fat!

Makes this old guy smile!