The History of Pork Scratchings

written by Julie Openshaw

From very humble beginnings as a regional food, Pork Scratchings are now a national snack.  Recent press publicity and mentions in such TV soaps as Coronation Street and Eastenders have made Pork Scratchings a household name.

Freshers Foods Ltd. are one of the largest producers of Pork Scratchings selling the product under our Pub Original and Butchers Labels throughout the U.K.  At Freshers Foods, we decided that a very little was written down about the history and origins of Pork Scratchings and due to the amount of questions being asked, we should put together a short history, made up of opinions and comments of people in the trade and people who remember Pork Scratchings from earlier days.

Where do they originate from?

The consensus of opinion is that they originated in the West Midlands or Black Country.  The Black Country is named after it's roots in the industrial revolution and continuing role as a centre of heavy engineering and mining which in days gone by was said to cover the area in grime and soot.

It would seem that Pork Scratchings were very much a food of the working classes with origins back to the 1800's where it was produced as part of the tradition of families keeping their own pig at home and feeding it up for slaughter.

Comments and Reminiscences

One lady who we contacted believed her grandmother who was born in 1846 used to make them.  The method she used was to take the rind off the pig leaving a layer of fat on, she would then cut up the rind and cook in a heavy bottomed saucepan.  The rind was cooked slowly at first until a liquid was formed.  The temperature was then turned up with the rind and fat being stirred to avoid sticking.  The scratchings were then taken out and eaten with salt and the remaining fat used to fry chips.

A lady from Oxley stated that Pork Scratchings were made by rendering down the rind in a low oven to produce pork dripping.  The remaining rind was placed back in the oven on a high temperature to produce crisp Pork Scratchings.  They were then eaten with salt.

Just outside Wolverhampton in the wilds of Shropshire, Scratchings were made by the mother of a gentleman we spoke to.  His mother was aged 40 around the 1930's.  They were considered a delicacy at weekends when they had them for tea with plain bread and salt.  The leaf of the pig was sometimes used, which is the layer of fat around the kidneys.  The leaf was boiled, the top skimmed off which produced the Scratchings, they were very crispy and served with salt.

Again the leaf was mentioned by a lady from Cradley Heath whose daughter liked the softer Scratchings produced after making lard.

A lady from Wordsley also referred to people having their own pigs and that local butchers would come round to kill them on request.  This prior to and during the Second World War when meat was rationed.

Butchers started selling Pork Scratchings in the 1930's. A lady from Cradley Heath said that her butchers in Cradley Road would cook Scratchings in large aluminium barrels and sell them in quarters or 2 ounces loose.  They called it Crackling it was soft underneath and crunchy on top.

The gentleman working in the Black Country informed us that Pork Scratchings have been around since the turn of the century.  Originally it was strips of bacon rind that was salt dried and cut into little pieces and sold in paper bags.

What Next?

We would want this part of our website to have as many comments and snippets of information on the history of Pork Scratchings as possible along with any reminiscences of the past.

Please email tony@freshersfoods.co.uk or write to our factory address.  All letters and emails will be answered and included on our website at our discretion.  We will even send some sample packs of our Pork Scratchings as a thank-you.