Aciento (Pork Rind Paste)

Chances are, if you're not Oaxaqueño and grew up in this last generation in Mexico or the United States, you’ve probably been taught to think that pork fat like aciento—Oaxacan-style chicharrón paste—is not good for you, and that you should always cook and eat things made with a plant-based oil instead. It’s normal to think this way. That is, until you go to Oaxaca and see that aciento is a way of life and that a lot of elders live to be more than one hundred years old eating the stuff on a daily basis. You’ll also realize that it is amazingly flavorful and really completes a lot of masa-based Oaxacan dishes such as tlayudas, memelas, empanadas, and chochoyotes. Think of it as a Oaxacan brown butter. If you do it right, it should taste nutty and toasty, not like lard or like fat. I also understand that a lot of people may not have the time to properly render chicharrón into a paste, so this shortcut version using olive oil is much quicker and tastes almost as good. If you can’t find or don’t have access to fresh chicharrón, American-style pork rinds also work well.