Pork Rinds are pork skin processed for eating.Though you can also get pickled ones in jars, the best known ones are smoked then deep-fried in lard. They come out light, crunchy and curled.
The fried ones are sold in bags as a snack food. You can get them plain, or in flavours such as chile pepper, garlic, BBQ and salt & vinegar, etc. You can also buy microwaveable fried pork rinds: you warm them in the microwave, and they pop from the heat.
Most of the major snack food brands of pork rinds in America are actually made by other people for them. The two largest producers of pork rinds in the states (as of 2007) are Rudolph Foods of Lima, Ohio and Evans Food Products of Chicago.
Pork rinds are more popular in the southern states than in the north.
Pork rind is also used as fish bait.
In France, pork rind is known as “couenne.” It is used to make dishes such as Couenne de porc confite, Terrine de couenne, Saucisses de couenne, etc, and as a flavouring ingredient in dishes such as “haricots blancs avec des couennes.”
Nutrition
Pork Rinds are very popular during times of low-carb dieting crazes, as they have no carbohydrates.
 |
|
Amount
|
| Calories | |
80
|
| Fat | |
5 g
|
| Protein | |
9 g
|
Equivalents
1 cup = ½ oz (15 g)
10 oz (300 g) of microwavable ones will pop up to 1 ½ gallons.
Literature & Lore
“Pigskin is the social lion of winter for cocktail nibbling; it goes mighty well with beer. Pigskin is a first cousin to cracklings, but of more elegant manner. Bacon skins, that’s what, fried tender, easy-crunching as a crisp chip of potato, not so hard and greasy as the cracklings selling in Harlem. Several firms are producing fried rind under various trade names, but “Rolets” is the one we find especially savory, made by the Rolet Company, 24 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, retailing 1 ¼ ounces for 10 cents at numerous New York markets. These streamlined, tenderized cracklings can be used as a garnish to crumble over such soups as purée of green pea, bean soup, corn soup. Have them with succotash. Crumble to serve as a relish with curry.” — Paddleford, Clementine (1898 – 1967). Food Flashes Column. Gourmet Magazine. December 1947.