Cracklings

Cracklings, also known as scratchings, are the solid material which remains after rendering animal fat and skin to produce lard, tallow, or schmaltz. It is often eaten as a snack food or made into animal feed. It is also used in cooking.[1]

Cracklings are most commonly made from pork, goose, and chicken, but are also made from other poultry and from beef, mutton, and lamb.[2]

Sources

All

In French cuisine, cracklings (grillons, grattons, gratterons, frittons) may be made from pork, goose, or turkey. These are salted while hot and eaten as an hors-d'œuvre, especially in the southwest.[3]

Pork
Main article: Pork rind

Pig skin made into crackings are a popular ingredient worldwide: in Central European, Quebecois (cretons), Latin American and Spanish (chicharrones), East Asian, Southeast Asian, Southern United States, and Cajun cuisines. They are often eaten as snacks. In Hungary, they are popular as a breakfast or dinner food.[4]

Beef
Main article: Krupuk kulit

Krupuk kulit is an Indonesian cracker (krupuk) made of beef skin. In Argentina and Uruguay cracklings extracted from tallow are called chicharrones and are a common filling for traditional breads.

Poultry

In Hungary when you have a party, you start it with hot goose cracklings. It has to be goose.

— A Hungarian in New Orleans[5]

Goose cracklings are popular in Central European cuisine.[6]

Chicken and goose cracklings are popular in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, and are called gribenes.

Lamb and mutton

Cracklings from fat-tailed sheep were until recently a popular ingredient in Persian cuisine:

...many Iranians recall how, as a child, they relished a sandwich of the crispy remnants of the tail after rendering.

— Charles Perry[7]

Uses

Every part of Italy that raises pigs makes cracklings... [they] are eaten as a snack, kneaded into yeasted dough for breads, and stirred into sweet batters for dessert.

— Micol Negrin, Rustico[8]

Cracklings are used to enrich a wide variety of foods, from soups to desserts.[8] Modern recipes sometimes substitute crumbled cooked bacon.[9]

In German cuisine, cracklings of pork or goose (Grieben) are often added to lard (Schmalz) when it is used as a bread spread.[10]

Crackling is often added to doughs and batters to make crackling bread[1] (French pompe aux grattons[11]), crackling biscuits (Hungarian tepertős pogácsa[4]), or potato pancakes (oladyi).[12]

Salted cracklings are widely used as a snack food.

Cracklings have been used as a supplement to various kinds of animal feed, including for poultry, dogs, and pigs.[13]

Notes
  1. Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, s.v.
  2. Federal Board for Vocational Education, "The Home Project as a Phase of Vocational Agricultural Education", Bulletin no. 21, Agricultural Series no. 3 (September 1918) p. 85
  3. Prosper Montagné; Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud, eds., Larousse gastronomique: the encyclopedia of food, wine & cookery Crown, 1961. English translation of the 1938 edition. ISBN 0517503336, s.v. grattons, p. 473
  4. George Lang, The Cuisine of Hungary, Bonanza Books, 1971, ISBN 0517169630, p. 92, 350
  5. Elsa Hahne, You Are Where You Eat, 2008, p. 125
  6. Michael Roddy, "Trip Tips: Hungary, where goose is king - and eaten - for a month", Reuters, November 21, 2014
  7. Charles Perry, "Fat-tailed sheep", The Oxford Companion to Food, p. 300
  8. Micol Negrin, Rustico: Regional Italian Country Cooking, 2002, ISBN 0609609440, p. 256
  9. "Cream of Split Pea Soup", Stephanie Fleischer Osser, Bernard Clayton, The Complete Book of Soups and Stews, 1987, ISBN 0671438646, p. 329
  10. Ursula Heinzelmann, Food Culture in Germany, 2008, ISBN 0313344957, p. 64
  11. Patricia Wells, et al., The Food Lover's Guide to France, 1987, ISBN 0894803069, p. 534
  12. V.A. Bolotnikova, Byelorussian Cuisine, 1979, p. 78
  13. "Use of Cracklings in Feeds", The National Provisioner January 25, 2019 p. 18
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