Swine Time

Grace Worthy (center) with her daughter Annette and friend Chris Baker, head fryer.

Hello, hungry people.

Today, being Mother’s Day, I have two words for you: Pork rinds.

Yes, the skin of swine, fried and salted. A southern snack par excellence, packed with protein and crunchy goodness.

Forget flowers or chocolate or boring brunches. If you want to properly honor the mothers in your life on this their day of days, then give the gift of pig epidermis.

At least, that’s what I’m giving My Lovely Wife today. And she’ll be delighted by it.

***

If our favorite foods are those imbued with memory, then among Debbie’s favorite memories is riding around with her dad eating pork rinds.

“Whenever he pulled into a gas station, he’d always buy a big bag of pork rinds,” says Debbie. “And we’d eat the whole bag before we got home. Just the two of us in the car, talking and laughing and driving around eating pork rinds. I loved it.”

So to show my love for her on this occasion, I set out to make a batch of homemade pork rinds. Yes, love does indeed work in mysterious ways.

Stunt double with pig skin.

I’d never before made pork rinds. But it seemed easy enough. Remove a big hunk of skin from a pork butt, dehyrdate it in the refrigerator overnight, cut it into bite-sized pieces and then plop the pieces into hot grease.

Yes, it looked promising. But the results were, let’s say, less than delicious. Truth is, they were less than edible.

I don’t know what I did wrong. I’ll blame it on the pig.

***
Fortunately, I had a fallback plan.

The world was made a much better place a few years ago when Grace Worthy retired from her corporqte HR job and started selling homemade pork rinds at farmer’s markets around Central Florida.

“I always wanted my own business and pork rinds seemed a good way to go,” says Grace. “I grew up on a pig farm. We ate every part of those pigs. And pork rinds were the best part.”

So she bought a top-of-the-line commercial fryer ($7,000!!!) and started experimenting with different flavors.

Nowadays, Grace sells about 300 bags a week at $8 per bag. And these are big bags. If you wanted to finish a bagful while driving around in your car then you’d need to plan a trip of a couple hundred miles. Napkins and cold beverages should also be involved.

When I stopped by Ms. Grace’s Kettle for Debbie’s Mother’s Day surprise, she had trotted out a new flavor — shrimp-boil pork rinds! Trust me, they taste better than they sound. Be that as it may, I know my wife. I went with plain ol’ pork rinds.

When I told Ms. Grace her pork rinds would be my wife’s Mother’s Day gift, she said: “Oh, she’s gonna love you for that. I’ve never known anyone who wasn’t happy when they were eating pork rinds.”

So, Happy Mother’s Day, baby. Munch on!

And, what the heck, let’s conduct Today’s Poll.