The Pork Rind Heritage Festival takes place in the village of Harrod, where Rudolph Foods has its headquarters. Along with freshly fried pork rinds and cracklins, there are food vendors, a beer garden, rides and games, live entertainment, contests and more.
2023 DATE: June 9-10, 2023
Location: Downtown Harrod
Website: http://www.porkrindfest.com
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This post documents my experience on June 11, 2011.
Being a potato chip lover…
…I’ve often overlooked the mighty pork rind.
But when I heard that there was a festival dedicated to the fried pig skins, I decided to travel over 100 miles….
…to see what the Pork Rind Heritage Festival had to offer.
Set in Harrod, headquarters of Rudolph Foods, I was immediately impressed…
…with the village’s Veterans’ Memorial Park…
…containing both a battle tank…
…and a Huey helicopter.
(How many villages of 250 people have helicopters at their memorial parks?)
I continued on….
…past the Railroad Heritage Park…
…a miniature golf course…
…and a rather intimidating ride…
…before arriving at the festival midway.
Overall, the Pork Rind Heritage Festival was a simple town/village festival…
…with your typical foods…
…an entertainment stage/trailer…
…and even pony rides.
But deep in the festival….
…behind a row of tables…
…a neon sign burned brightly…
…as volunteer fryers sweat over the crackling pork skins.
I, meanwhile….
…comfortably sampled the three varieties of rather tasty pork rinds available for sale (also with spicy and BBQ flavorings).
First, there were the normal pork rinds, which were crunchy and a little meaty.
Second were the lighter, fluffier pork rinds, which were horribly addicting!
And, finally, there were the cracklings (picture taken off Wikipedia), which involved a crunchier skin and a juicy layer of fat.
Two of the volunteers were nice enough to open a bag of the cracklings for me to sample and I ended up really liking them – fat and all (not that surprising really)..
But with consideration of my heart, I decided to get a bag of the fluffy pork rinds with BBQ and and a bag of the normal pork rinds.
(I would later learn these were still good cold!).
After my purchase, I went beyond the pork rind booth…
…to where the Rudolph Foods booth glowed in its red, white and blue.
Here, you I had the opportunity to buy some packaged Rudolph Foods products…
…and help create a new holiday.
And, although I still am a potato chip lover….
…I admit that the freshly fried pork rinds made quite an impression.