Cracklin’s

Cracklins are small nuggets of roasted or deep-fried pork rind that are tremendously flavorful. Throughout the South, they are found laced into corn bread or gravy or sprinkled on a salad, but in Cajun Louisiana they are practically a food group unto themselves. Pop-in-the-mouth cracklin’s are sold by every butcher who slaughters hogs to make boudin sausage. They are vigorously infused with hot pepper or other aggressive seasonings and sold (still warm, one hopes) by the bagful. Hot, crisp, seasoned pork fat: Could there be anything more recklessly sybaritic? At first bite, a cracklin’ crunches, and there may be a few striations of chewy meat (like deep fried bacon), but after that first crunch and a chaw or two, it dissolves into a salacious slurry of pork and pepper without peer in the world of snack foods.