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In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean blue from Spain. Upon arriving in the Americas, his first question was: "Where is the bathroom?"
His second question: "Where are my chicharrones?"*
Suffice to say, Chicharrones have been around for a while.
Want to learn more? Read on.
Simply put, chicharrones is the Spanish word for a salty, savory, and crunchy snack known as pork rinds in the United States.
Wondering what's a pork rind? We've got you covered.
Pork rinds, or chicharrones, are fried pig skin. Pretty simple, right? Not so fast.
(We talked about the differences between chicharrones and pork rinds in detail if you want to dig in more.)
Before entering the fryer, chicharrones are called pellets. Modern pellets go through a smoking and drying process that imparts a rich bacon flavor. Next, the dried pellets are rendered to remove excess fat.
Once processed, the finished chicharrones pellets look and smell like dreamy squares of bacon. When added to the fryer, the pellets expand like popcorn into the crunchy, voluptuous snacks available on PorkRinds.com
More adventurous pork rind brands (like Southern Recipe Small Batch) use modern alternatives, such as frying in sunflower oil. More recently, baked chicharrones have been made available, which omit the frying process altogether!
After the cooking process, chicharrones are often seasoned with salty, spicy, sweet, or vinegar flavors. Some bags of chicharrones even include a hot sauce packet! How cool is that?
Chicharrones have many different names across cultures and languages: pork rinds, scratchings, torresmo, and flæskesvær, to name a few.
Who invented chicharrones? The history is contested. One bizarre story is that a Spanish farmer discovered chicharrones in the 1700s after his hog rubbed its skin off while using a tree as a back scratcher. The skin baked in the sun and smelled of delicious bacon. After one tentative taste, the farmer was hooked!
Post World War II, Americans were hungry for comfort food, and chicharrones fit the bill. The word entered the English lexicon in the 1940s, and the rest is history!
While chicharrones' origins are debated, we can be certain that pork skin has been consumed by humans throughout Europe and Asia since antiquity. Modern chicharrones continue the time-honored tradition of utilizing every aspect of the pig to minimize waste.
The technical Spanish professor's answer is that chicharrón is the singular form of chicharrones, much like pork rind is to pork rinds.
In the 1990s, chicharrones went mainstream in the United States when 41st President and native Texan, George H.W. Bush, proudly proclaimed them to be his favorite snack.
Chicharrones have exploded in popularity in recent years due to their usefulness in low carb and gluten-free diets. Some practitioners of keto and paleo swear by chicharrones as a guilt-free, diet-compliant snack. Check out this article to learn why pork rinds are keto-compliant.
The snack is also an excellent collagen protein source, making chicharrones a tasty, crunchy replacement for carb-heavy potato chips.
Many recipes use chicharrones as a bread crumb replacement, dessert, salad crouton, and even a cocktail garnish.
The Perfect Keto Pizza Dough? Brought to you by chicharrones.
Easy peasy. PorkRinds.com is an online store that offers chicharrones and other pig paraphernalia. Sign-up for our newsletter to get the latest updates on chicharrones, chicharrones recipes, chicharrones discounts, and other pigpourri.
*Editor's Note: There is no evidence to support either of these boarish claims