Chicharinas and Chicharrones

There were countless Saturday mid-mornings when I would open my bedroom door and up my nose would waft the smell of chicharrones, my younger brother’s snack-of-choice.

It just wasn’t the aroma I needed before noon, but my brother was addicted.

I thought of him first when I accepted the free bags of chicharinas and cinammon churros from the nice lady at Rudolph Foods. I thought she was calling the chicharrones “chicharinas” as some sort of new marketing ploy. Like, “Hey, let’s call this little fat bomb a ‘chicharina’ and make people ‘think’ they are not ‘chicharrones.”

So, initially, I was disappointed. The chicharinas are made of wheat. I wanted the porky fat bomb, a fat bomb that wouldn’t count because I didn’t buy them, right?

OK, so even before I opened them, I went to my favorite taco truck (The one on Charlotte near Watts Ave., if you are in Nashville) and picked up 28 spicy pork and asada tacos and drove to a friend’s house for a quickie Friday night dinner hangout.

She was making her famous guacamole, pictured above. I laid out the chile and lime chicharinas next to the guac, and listened. Everyone loved them. I loved them so much, I held half the bag back! (See it in the background of the picture?) And, then I got caught and everyone else finished off my free blog-earned payola chicharinas.

The cinammon churros were a hit with the kids. I think they’d go great on vanilla ice cream or chai tea and while I enjoyed them, they made me long for the hot, sugary ones I used to get at the Morro Castle on N.W. 7th Street in Miami. But, hey, I’m in Nashville, so que remedio?

Anyway, having gotten all nostalgic over chicharrones, I called my brother and asked him what the hell was up with all that pork rind eating he did as a teen-ager.

“I just loved them, especially abuela’s chicharrones because they had like a 1/4-inch of fat stuck to them,” he said, sounding like an addict about to relapse.

“The best,” he continued. “was when I needed a salty and a sweet and I would eat a chicharron and then have a peanut butter cup!”

I saw my skinny brother in a whole new light in that moment: As a pre-menstrual woman.

Anyway, my brother said he has to step widely around the bags of chicharrones at his New Jersey grocery store.

Should he relapse, Rudolph , who also own’s Pepe’s chicharrones, says they make the best. (They’ve even got a tri-fold, double-sided glossy with pork rind info and pictures to prove the point). They’ve also got some interesting recipes on the site.

OK, Latinos, talk pork fat to me…Why do we like it so much?

And to make the FTC happy, the only compensation I got for this post was two bags of chicharinas and two bags of churros from Rudolph and some blog fodder.