
“It was hilarious,” I had told her. “My kid thought the whole tray of crackling was for him!” We laughed, talked about how crackling, when done right, is one of the most perfect foods…something I’d want for my last meal. “Crackling wrapped in bacon,” she joked, but we both knew we were half serious. “I’d want sushi for my last meal,” a third one chimed in. “Sushi? I can get that whenever the hell I want! Now if we were talking about crackling sushi, well then maybe.” And that’s all it generally takes. Someone says something in jest, and from that a brainchild is born that has you plotting a cooking experiment that, in your warped little mind, belongs in the damned Bocuse d’Or. “What if,” I pondered, “what if I then drizzle it with a bourbon-maple reduction?” We were both salivating at that point, at the thought of a hunk of crackling, sitting atop a soft bed of still-warm rice, wrapped in place with a piece of bacon (not seaweed) and then drizzled with a reduction. But it had to be good crackling…the best of cracklings….if it would work. Crackling that you can bisect and see three complete layers in the cross section: meat, fat and skin. The idea tossed vegetarians out to pasture, sent nutritionists into cardiac arrest and most likely also gave pork lovers a hard on. My idea, thus, of a perfect bite.
If you’ve never experienced real crackling—which most emphatically does not include store-bought, packaged pork rinds—you haven’t fully lived. The combination of saltiness, richness, crunchiness and butteriness—the counterpoint of textures and flavors—make for gastronomic alchemy. The thought to then take a morsel of piggy perfection and create an oink-worthy “sushi”, well that was pure genius if I do say so, and the bourbon-maple reduction was…ummm….mind blowing. So I offer this creation up to you, gentle reader, as my contribution to Super Bowl munchies. Wash a couple of them down with a refreshing Weisse beer and I promise your guests will never look at another pathetic piece of faux-crab sushi the same again.


















