Home | Cookbooks | Diary | Magic Menu | Surprise! | More ≡

Pork Scratchings

Snacks

(This page is about the pork product, see elsewhere for batter scratchings.)

Small, c1ins, strips of pork skin fried in fat so as to bubble and expand. Salted and served as a snack, commonly as an accompaniment to beer. A form of crackling.


Pork Scratchings
(Photo origin unknown)


The origin of Pork Scratching as a snack dish separate from Crackling is obscure. The OED provides a reference back to about 1440 from the ‘Psalmi Penitenti’ “My bones beth drie and forsoke, As scrachenis that beth for-fryed.” and an item from the 1883 ‘Knowledge: an illustrated magazine of science‘; “Scratchings’- a delicacy greatly relished by our British ploughboys, but rather too rich in pork fat.”

The specific name ‘Pork Scratchings’ is particularly associated with the Black Country, but is traced no further back than a script by John Sullivan for the BBC’s ‘Only fools and horses: the Bible of Peckham‘ of 1981; “Get us a packet of pork scratchings would you.”


2014






MORE FROM Foods of England...
Cookbooks Diary Index Magic Menu Random Really English? Timeline Donate Royalty English Service Food Map of England Lost Foods Accompaniments Biscuits Breads Cakes and Scones Cheeses Classic Meals Curry Dishes Dairy Drinks Egg Dishes Fish Fruit Fruits & Vegetables Game & Offal Meat & Meat Dishes Pastries and Pies Pot Meals Poultry Preserves & Jams Puddings & Sweets Sauces and Spicery Sausages Scones Soups Sweets and Toffee About ... Bookshop

Email: [email protected]


COPYRIGHT and ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: © Glyn Hughes 2022
BUILT WITH WHIMBERRY