A Childhood Treat

I have mentioned before I helped my mother in the kitchen.  Most times it was the every day stuff like biscuits, bacon and gravy.  Those were good as I was always hungry.  But there were two times that were really special.  The first was when my mother made Vanilla Custard Pies.  I got to stir the filling and help beat the meringue.  And, I loved those pies.  I still miss them.  I'm not sure what the difference is but no one has made anything that came close.

But, as much as I loved the pies I loved the crust trimmings.  You know, when you put the crust in the pie pan and run the knife around the edges to trim off the excess.  We kept all that and since my mother made at least three pies in a day there was a pretty fair amount of crust left over.  (No store bought frozen stuff either).  We'd put that on a cookie sheet (or baking pan as we referred to it) and bake them until they were a  nice, golden brown.  Yummmmmmmmm.  I loved it.  I am tempted to go to the store for some frozen crusts and just cut them in irregular shaped pieces to bake.

The other big treat was home made 'meat skins'.  Now there is a HUGE difference in home made meat skins and what is sold these days as pork rinds.  Home made is closer to the "washboard" style pork rinds or the things they sell as crackings.  Neither are just right. 

When I was a kid we had bacon every morning but we never had sliced bacon.  We bought it in 'slabs' with the skin on.  Of a morning we'd  take one of the slabs from the refrigerator (when we had electricity) and slice off as much as we needed.  These days when you buy "sliced slab" bacon they slice all the way through the skin.  We just sliced down to the skin then across the skin to release the bacon slices.  Sort of like filleting  a fish.

The skins were never discarded as they were too precious.  Once we got enough of them (every couple of months or so) my mother or I would cut them in pieces of about two inches by four inches and put them on a cookie sheet.  (modern term) or baking pan (what we called it) and put them in the oven to bake.  None of that wimpy, puffy, air filled crap either when it came out.  Hard as nails, full of greasy, pork flavor and absolutely heavenly.   I dearly loved those things.  I kind of have to smirk and feel superior when we go down the snack aisle and I see what they are selling people these days that they pass off as pork rinds.  I bet nobody in their entire company has had a real "meat skin" in their life.