Smartening up the Chicharrón Technique. And Italy too.
To fill out the chicharrón thread, and in case you missed this in her comment, here is Sonia Bañuelos on chicharron in Zacatecas which is toward the north of central Mexico–and in Italy!
My family is from Zacatecas and they would slaughter a pig twice a year. The skin and extra fat bits were always fried and served the day of the slaughter. So it was a very festive, and delicious, treat with some promise of the meat to follow.
Chicharrones are a very male dish, it is one of those dishes I always associate with men cooking. In fact, my father has his very own chicharron contraption, a metal drum gassed by a propane tank with a huge aluminum pan on top for frying. My brother is an engineer and made him a very sophisticated press for extracting all the fat, this results in a very dry and crisp chicharron.
Even still, my father is 78, at every family gathering he will start his preparations at dawn in anticipation of the arrival of his 8 children and their brood. I was hoping to inherit said contraption but, as is the tradition, it is intended for my only brother.
Oh, do you know the Italian equivalent? While in Fanano, above Bologna, years ago I went to a traditional food fair. There I came across someone selling pork from two large cakes. Both were comprised of bits of fatty pork bits spotted with meat, though one was dry while the other moist. They tasted just like chicharrones, salt and all!
I just love new technology being applied to a centuries-old product. And please, I’ve never seen anything like this about Italy. Anyone have any more comments on Italian-style chicharrón prensado?
And check out Sonia’s blog at at www.saffronpaisley.com
I haven’t seen cooked pork rinds in Italy, although I seen them sold as a compressed cake in Spain. The Wikipedia entry on “Pork Rinds” list many variations thoughout Europe and elsewhere.
Always look at Wikipedia, right? But this does, incidentally, confirm the theory that Mexico is relatively unusual in using pork rinds as a major food.
Fried pork rinds. Salted (or otherwise preserved) pig skin is/was a pretty common store item in parts of Spain and France. When I was in Scotland I had a big box of salted pork skin that I bought in southern Spain, when I cooked a stew, I would toss in a few pieces for flavour and texture.
Yes. Good stuff. But still not the main ingredient in a major meal on a weekly basis.
OK, the word (or words) in Italian for pork rind (fresh) are “cotiche/cotenne”. This is the root of “cotechino”, which is the boiling salamu that is filled with 1/3 pork rinds.
There are numerous Italian recipes using these pork rinds, pork rinds with greens, pork rinds with beans, stuffed pork rinds, Cotechinata (seasoned pork skin, rolled up, fried then simmered in a tomato sauce), pork rind involtini, pickled pork rind….etc.
Except in Mexico, I doubt that these would be a daily meal as it requires a pig to be killed and this is/was a special occasion for most people. I would like to know what the historic (pre-1950’s) consumption of chicharrón in Mexico was. Was it really a major meal on a weekly basis or has that developed more recently?
Hmm, fascinating list. And it points up the fact that so far as I know pork rind in Mexico comes either pickled (very popular) or fried and it is the fried version that is then incorporated into other dishes.
I don’t see the use of rind to give body to stews that is so common in Europe. Please correct me, any of you who know Mexican food better than I do. But if I’m correct, could that be because so many stew-type dishes are thickened with purees of chile or tomato or tomate (tomatillo), the latter in particular giving a jelled texture.
As to what the pre-1950s consumption was, I have no idea. Certainly it would have been lower in the country. In fact, as I’ve said, it seems that even now there is too much rind for the quantity of pork killed. It has crossed my mind that some could be imported from the States (as I’m pretty certain spinal cord and tripe are). I once saw figures for the US global exports of all the many bits of the animals that Americans tend not to eat. Fascinating.
The US is a major exporter of duck tongues to China.
Adam, thanks. Yes, cotechino is what is was called. Interesting… that the moist variation is boiled… The Italian fried version is exactly like what my father makes and what I know from our ancestral village. For the Mexican pickled variation, rinds are used exclusively but when frying, rinds, fatty bits, ears, and intestines are thrown into the pot and salted when crisp. I think I will try to convince my father to boil, salt and press the chicarrones next time we see one another. Who knows, maybe cotechino will become part of the Bañuelos family tradition!
As for the frequency of consumption, isn’t it so that such “festival” foods or highly caloric foods that were once reserved for special occasions whether a holiday, slaughter of an animal, or in preparation for the long Winter months are now commonplace? It is a tragedy of the modern era, the ease of which we can have any thing at any time. I find it very disconcerting…
Rachel, perhaps all the rind that is in Mexico comes from the same place that produces all the dried porcini in Italy… China!