The Love That Dare Not Speak Its (Fried Fat) Name

God, I feel terrible writing this. But feel if I confess it, maybe it will go away. I’m not sure if the “it” is the guilt or the yearning. After all, when I do it, while I’m doing it, I can’t believe it. It doesn’t feel real. I say to myself, “This is disgusting. This is the last time.”

I hadn’t been tempted in a long time. Years, I think. Luckily, in my usual comings and goings, I can avoid it. It’s never even in my sightline. But about a month ago I went out with a colleague for lunch. She wanted a salad and recommended a taqueria near her work (no, it doesn’t escape me as being odd that she would think a taqueria the best place for a salad but whatev). I hadn’t been to this particular taqueria before. I decided to order a couple of tacos (and, yes, my friend had the salad…THE salad…there was only one on the menu). I saw that they were spit roasting chickens in the back, so I ordered one taco with pollo arrostado and on the other…oh, god, there it was. I was not going to order that. But it slipped so easily off the tongue, especially in Spanish. Chicharrones. Deep fried pork rinds: crumbly bits of pork skin, with a smidgen of fat and meat still attached, transformed by the fryer into the Trifecta of Porkdom. I both shudder and salivate just thinking about it.

When my order came, I ate the chicken taco first, thinking that I might get filled up and never actually touch the chicharrones. I was able to listen to my friend as she talked but as soon as I finished the chicken taco, I was lost. Fear, anxiety, shame all crowded out my other thoughts. “I can’t eat gobs of pork fat in front of this woman. She respects me, thinks I’m a together professional, someone who knows right from wrong, someone who doesn’t knowingly, let alone enthrallingly, put deep fried fat into her mouth over and over again!” But underneath their little green veils of tomatillo salsa, they called out to me. Salty. Meltingly luscious. Crispy. Porky. Forbidden of all forbidden foods. “Please, oh, please, let this lunch end,” I silently prayed. Another thought entered, growling: “Leave, woman, so I can scarf this taco down with no recrimination from you, a person who EATS SALAD IN A TAQUERIA!” But lunch continued and, as we talked, I ate my little pork bits one by one in an off-hand, slightly disgusted fashion. Until they were all gone.

I thought that was the end of it. My fix for the next twenty-five years. But it wasn’t. My gustatory memory is strong and I was reliving that taste every time I was out. I kept finding myself near that taqueria, even though it’s a good ten miles from my house. Miraculously, my self-loathing prevailed and I never went in. But the devil finds you, even if you avoid him in his usual haunts. I found him in the aisle of a supermarket where I don’t usually shop. There was a bag of fried pork rinds for $1.69 right at the end of my Aisle of Irony (a.k.a. the bulk natural foods). I bought them. By the time I was pulling out of the parking lot, I had a handful ready to pop in my mouth. And, here’s how I know the addiction is bad: these industrial, uniform-in-shape-and-size, virtually flavorless, air-puffed pork rinds turned to packing foam in my gullet and I STILL ATE THEM. What kind of freak am I? I stopped eating, but mostly because my esophagus was now clogged with pork sludge.

I thought that experience was enough to sober me up. But, a week later, back at that same supermarket, I found freshly-made chicharrones in the deli section. They were the real deal, the good kind every Porkaterian lusts for in his bacon-addled heart: gnarled, coffee-colored to golden brown, nothing uniform about them other than that each had a layer of fat still attached (as well as the occasional bit of meat). Again, in the car (clearly the locus of all bad eating), I reached into the bag. I took out one and the crispy clarity of porkiness filled my nostrils. I bit down with my molars and heard that oh-so-satisfying CRRRRUNNCHH.

It took a week for me to get through that little $1.50 bag. Not a day, a week. And, as much as I loved each and every morsel, I am now grossed out by my, dare I say it, piggy-ness. Not that I don’t love the pig—I blame it on my Chinese heritage and my mother giving us roasted pigs feet to gnaw on while we watched t.v. [what? I couldn’t grow up in a family that had Ritz crackers and cheese or celery sticks and peanut butter as afternoon snacks? Clearly this is a goldmine of food-related psychotherapy…]—but even too much of a good thing is well, too much, especially when you think about all that pig fat obstructing your own arteries. Thankfully my jonesing for pork rinds has abated. For how long I don’t know. All I know is that right now I’m craving broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. I can respect myself again.