Taking Bacon to the Next Level!

I was in San Francisco a few months ago and late one afternoon I joined a couple of friends in a brew pub not far from the Moscone Center - The Thirsty Bear. This place serves "small plates" and one of the things on the offing was fresh pork rinds. To me, these are like the Toro of pig candy (aka Bacon); and while the mates I was with picked at a few pieces, I devoured them - and then after proposing a second order and getting the requisite one additional person to jump on board, I ordered another plate, and devoured those too.

I wrote a blog piece a couple of years ago, Worth Dieting For, describing my experience in roasting pork skin, which was my approach to making pork rinds. They tasted ok, but they were like crunching on a seriously barbecue'd chicken wing - lots of flavour but not kind to your teeth.

Anyway, the other day I was poking around a little place in Westboro called The Piggy Market (as some of you know I'll shortly be calling this neighbourhood home). By coincidence, this place is actually owned by Dave Neil: you may recall a few years ago I wrote a piece for Ottawa Magazine about the pate he prepared for Aubrey's Meat Market. And as one of those near-the-cash-register-only-a-dollar type trinkets, Dave sells roasted pig skin. So I bought some - assuming it'd be way better than mine. But as it turns, as tasty as it was, it was also very hard on my teeth.

So while I have some time on my hands I'm going to make some real pork rinds. I've already done some research, and for starters the term "pork rind" is a bit of a misnomer because it's not the pork rind that is being deep-fried but the fat adhering to it - which probably should have been obvious to me. Anyway, I figure I have a short window here in which to experiment. As you may have seen from my post a few days back on "smoking", I'm trying to be sensitive to my new neighbours, at least until they piss me off by playing Def Leppard at 11PM on a Saturday night (who, by the way, are still on tour. . . coming soon to a Blues Fest near you!).

So stay tuned and I'll let you know how they turn out. Or keep an eye on the obits, cause we're talking about hot oil, pig fat, a closed environment and an inherent tendency to want to sample before it's done. . . what could go wrong!