Pork 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