When I was invited to a party where Southern pork dishes were being celebrated, the decision on what to bring was a no-brainer: Mexican chocolate pralines. Now before you call my contribution a little odd, let me explain myself.
My first (and more obvious) choice was to make cookies with lard. I didn’t have any lard on hand, however, so I went to the Union Square farmers’ market to pick up a tub. But a snowstorm had threatened to blanket the city and my preferred lard vendor wasn’t there; clearly, I had to come up with another plan.
I’ve been spending lots of time lately reading old cookbooks. I’m curious to see what our ancestors ate and to see when certain dishes may have come into the common culinary vernacular. When looking for inspiration, I recalled that I had recently come across an old Mexican-candy recipe that called for piloncillo (or brown sugar) to be cooked with water and a strip of raw bacon.
Now, I know bacon in a dessert is a trendy thing these days, but I was intrigued to see it listed in a 100-year-old recipe. And while I didn’t have lard to make cookies, bacon was easily attainable. In another cookbook, I had seen a recipe for Mexican-chocolate pralines. So for the pork-themed feast, I decided to combine the two thoughts and make Mexican-chocolate pralines with bacon.
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