Why Yes, Dear Reader, You Can Make Pork Rinds in the Microwave

Or, the food post I’ve waited 15 years to do

I first became aware of microwavable pork rinds sometime before my first son was born when I found several bags in my parent’s house. I was not brave enough to try them then and ever since I’ve kind of regretted that.

Then I saw a display of bags by the check out counter at Ike’s Discount Drug and thought to myself, in not now, when? If not me, who?

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know these have been around forever. We can’t all be hip to all the new convenience products made out of external organs like you are.

As you can see it looks like a bag of the more familiar microwave popcorn. The pictures are kind of small, so if you’d like to get a better look at the instructions check out Microwave Pork Rinds on Flickr.

The instructions note that the bag won’t make popping sounds like microwave popcorn and won’t inflate as fully. This is true. However, much like microwave popcorn, they do fill the room with an unmistakable aroma. Cooking pig skin has a distinctive odor. I wouldn’t call it bad, but it probably makes pregnant women puke. Again, much like microwave popcorn.

See, not very inflated at all.

They look like pork rinds, they taste like pork rinds.  I wish they hadn’t, because I’m not crazy about pork rinds. I do like the crackling on the top of a pork roast, so I’m thinking maybe I’d like them if they were fresh, but MSG besprinkled pork rinds in a microwavable bag are sort of the definition of processed out the wazoo.

You notice a few look different than the others. I suspected those were the pork rind old maids. To be sure, I tried  to bite into one and couldn’t. Which also confirmed my suspicion that pre-microwaved pork rinds are a lot like ogre toenail clippings.

By the way, I initially only bought one bag (99 cents!) and then realized this post wouldn’t be complete without a picture of what the insides looked like. So I went back to buy some more and they weren’t by the counter any more. I felt rather sheepish about asking as I had two small children with me who were already clutching bags of ramen noodles to their scrawny chests. I have my pride, you know?

Anyway, I found them clipped to a display of chips so if you want some, look there.

And yup, looks like a whole bag o’ ogre toenails to me.

If you like pork rinds and would like to have nice, warm, fresh from the microwave ones, you can probably get these at a lot of stores but if you can’t, Amazon sells them. (note affiliate link, proceeds go to buy more food for me to try. Don’t feel like you’re obligated, though, my scrawny kids are just on a raw ramen noodles kick, we have other food for them, too. Fancy food like blueberries even!)

Tagged as: grody foods, I am so a good mother even if my kids eat raw ramen, microwave pork rinds, museum of snack foods, ogre toenails, things you can put in the microwave