I had to run to the dollar store this afternoon to pick up a couple of things.

As I stepped out of my truck and was heading in the store, a smell from my childhood stopped  me dead in my tracks. It was the smoky, oily smell of an old yearly farming chore that I had only participated in once when I was very young.

Someone nearby was rendering lard over a wood fire.

I remember Grandmother, Granddaddy and my great grandmother Nan tending a great big cast iron pot perched over a fire in the dirt driveway. I have no clear recollection of what I may have been doing but more than likely I was in the way as kids tend to be.

Granddaddy was keeping the fire hot while my two grandmothers took turns stirring the pot with a wooden paddle. One would add new pig skins and fat. The other would dip it out later with a skimmer that may have been made out of hardware cloth. We called that rendered out flesh cracklings.

When the cracklings were cooled and lightly salted,  Mother gave me a few to try . I must have thought them to be good because I still east pork skins to this day.

The lard was put up in tin cans to be used in cooking or baking. Biscuits are especially good when made with lard and buttermilk.

The cracklings were frozen and pulled out as needed to make crackling cornbread - think buttermilk cornbread with bacon chunks baked in it. Great stuff!

I miss those things. We don't eat much in the way of bread anymore and the number of people who appreciate those old southern things seems to be waning.

I'm glad that I went to the store today.  Had I not, I would not have remember this.

"Just the Skins" by Tom Feary is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0