Content Warning: Food, Meat, Diet Talk.
Aviso de tema: la comida, el carne, hablar de dietas.
My Spanish is still egregious, but I have a question about chicharróns. Not the pork rinds you get out of a bag at the grocery store. The kinda crazy carved off hard fried chunk of a pig you get at the carniceria. You know, looks like a foot long two inch thick strip of bacon?
I just had one for the first time today and it was everything I dreamed. It was like a pig fat sandwich where the bread was strips of tasty corkwood. Eldritch culinary ecstasy. Now my question, for those of you whose cultures consume those things: How often are they to be eaten? Is it like a fair food, where you only eat one or two strips a year? Or is it something one might eat once a week? Or every day?
Coming as an outsider / total gringo, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this freaky magic food. Diet culture would have me avoid it altogether, but fuck that shit. I’m curious what the people who invented the recipe have to say.
Mi español todavía es atroz (gracias por duolingo y translate.google), pero tengo una pregunta sobre los chicharrónes. No los chicharrónes de una bolsa en la tienda de comestibles. Un poco loco tallado en un pedazo de cerdo frito en la carnicería. ¿Sabes, parece una tira de tocino de un pie de largo y dos pulgadas de grosor?
Solo tuve uno por primera vez hoy y fue todo lo que soñé. Era como un emparedado de grasa de cerdo donde el pan era tiras de bosque de tapón sabroso. El éxtasis culinario y misterioso. Ahora mi pregunta, para aquellos de ustedes cuyas culturas consumen esas cosas: ¿con qué frecuencia se deben comer? ¿Es como una comida feria, donde solo comes pocos por año? ¿O es algo que comer una vez a la semana? O todos los días?
Viniendo como un extraño / gringo total, no sé lo que se supone que debo hacer con esta extraña comida mágica. La cultura de la dieta me haría evitarla por completo, pero a la mierda. Tengo curiosidad por saber qué dicen la gente que inventaron la receta.
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Good day,
I am from the occidental part of Mexico, and carnitas were a dish served on big celebrations. People used to grow pigs and one or two days before the big day the pig was slaughtered ( I am not sure if this is the right word ) and butchered. I saw this procedure a couple of times many many moons ago.
Almost all of the pig is used as food. Moronga is made using the blood, the guts are washed and trimmed and served fried (tripitas). The skin is prepared to make pork rinds ( called around here Duros served with an aguacate sauce). And the bones are used to make soup. The fat is used to fry the meat and make chicharrón. Usually the leftovers of the party were used to make a lot of different dished all the week after.
There are several kinds of chicharrón, depending on the part of the pig they use to make it. For example, you have pancita (pork belly ), carnitas ( usually leg and back), trompa, buche, tripa, riñon, higado, etc From what you are describing seems like.you tried pancita.
Nowadays, carnitas are a “once a week or two” dish on Mexico as it is a little bit expensive compared to other food, about 10 dollars a kilo. In my family we used to eat the chicharrón in tacos. We used to make a sauce called pico de gallo (tomatoes, onion, advocados, lemon, coriander, nopal, salt and pepper) and fried some beans. The procedure was simple, put two tortillas on a plate and stuff them with meat and sauce and eat, eat, eat.
Another way to try carnitas is a torta ahogada, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torta_ahogada ) with a tejuino ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejuino ). Or as a filling on tamales, sopes, etc.
Muchas gracias, A. Pizano. ¡Esa es mucha información interesante! Como solo tenía una respuesta, me alegra que sea una muy buena.
Thanks a lot, A. Pizano. That is a lot of interesting information! Because I only had one answer, I am glad that it is a very good one.
Here in southern Spain, there are two types, one is pork belly that is sliced thin like bacon, and another that are heavily spiced (lots of paprika) fried chunks. Depending upon who made them, they are either mostly meat or 50% fat.
These are eaten usually as a treat, and are quite expensive as mentioned. I buy a about a half a pound for 5-6 Euros, three or four times a year. Many small shops have them set out in a large dish and encourage you to try one… good marketing!
When I lived in New Mexico, which at the time was majority-Spanish (they did not want to be called Latino/as or Hispanics, and they did ¡NOT! want to be called Chicanos), chicharrónes were sold and consumed eagerly at fiestas, but quite rarely at home meals.
And they were hardly ever more than 2 inches long.