"He Stole My Skin"

IMAGINE a distressed ten-year-old girl stomping toward you, fists clenched, shouting,

 “He stole my skin!”

You quickly scan the troubled child for possible lacerations, gashes  and rips yet see nothing.  Baffled, you respond, 

“What’s wrong with your skin? It looks fine to me.”

Again, “He stole my skin!” This time she's pointing to a grinning, ten year old boy.

You arise from your seat to investigate. The angry, victimized young girl is trailing behind you.  Examining the scene, it’s now obvious. You tell the offending student to return the skin to the furious ten year old.

He responds, “I can’t. I ate it.”

Another  school lunchroom squabble. Solve it now or it will fester into a huge fiasco.

**********

 For me, the best part of fried chicken is the crunchy, flavor filled skin.  Sometimes you eat the skin first and delight in all of the tongue teasing spices .  Sometimes you put the skin to the side, eating it last as a pleasant memory to a scrumptious meal. 

In the abovementioned incident, the skin was laid to the side to be consumed last. A nearby chicken skin thief took it and ate it. 

Mostly everyone has heard and/or eaten pork cracklings

or pork skins.

Up until now, I never knew there was a commercial market for Chicken Cracklings which is fried chicken skin.  I had to try them.

I found these at Grant’s. It’s the same place I discovered Rap Snacks.

I paid $1.59 for a 2 oz. bag. (Pricey)

I got about a handful of skins. They were delicious. They weren’t greasy or too salty. There was a small hint of sweetness. I’d like more but it’s such a small amount for $1.59.

Ingredients include: chicken skins with attached fat, salt, monosodium glutamate, sugar, dehydrated onion, tenox-4 antioxidant, natural smoke flavor, spices.

Nutrition Facts: (Are you kidding?)

Kim’s Ready To Eat ChickenCracklings processing plant is located on 3^rd Street in Clarksdale, MS 38614

I wonder if they do tours and dole out free samples? If they do...ROAD TRIP!

That’s it ***

Next week: Museum in the Midst
Birminghamians, Did you know that there is a vintage car museum in Center Point? 

Rap Snacks

I only went in to pay for gas and then I saw these. THEY definitely caught my eye. They’re unusual, colorful and they list curious flavors.

I'm not a rap music fan. Anything past the era of  The Sugar Hill Gang, Kool Moe Dee and Grand Master Flash, I drop off of the grid. 

Nutrition Stats

Rap Snacks consists of various flavors of popcorn, potato chips , cheese puffs, fries. Of course I had to try them. I didn't concern myself with the caloric content.

 

I tried the Cardi B Honey Dripped Popcorn because a Facebook friend, P.P. said it was good. Also, I like Cardi B's quick wit and humor though I've never listened to her music.  After pouring the popcorn into a bowl it yielded about 2 cups of popcorn. The flavor was just the right amount of salty and sweet. It had a light yellow coloring.

 I also tried the Migos chips..  I ate them before taking a picture so obviously they too were good. ☹️ Overall, I’d say these snacks are  as good as any others. 

Flavors include jalapeño, honey, barbeque, ranch, cheese, habanero, jerk and sour cream, all mixed in a variety of  ways. The snacks retail at $1.49 / 2.75 ounces

The marketing idea of placing pictures of rappers on the bags is a great concept in more ways than one. 

Who's the brain behind this idea?

James Lindsay is the CEO of Rap Snacks. After working for other companies he decided to venture out on his own.  He'd  had numerous successful food businesses before teaming with Universal Records in a project  featuring rap artists on his snack foods.

 Lindsay began in 1994 selling  his snacks under another name through a distributor. He sold out of 800 cases in 2 hours. The snacks were 25 cents a bag. Successful, but the business plan needed tweaking. After a five year hiatus James Lindsay came back with larger bags of the snack, more flavors and a deal with Universal Records to feature their rap artists on bags of his Rap Snacks. 

You can find a list of the various rap artists and their flavors

 here.