My Slavic/Russian/Czech/gypsy/whatever grandmother had a word she'd use to describe that delectable bit of crispy fried fat that you'd get on the outside of steaks and roasts. I, being young, never really got a good handle on what the actual word was, or how to pronounce it correctly, or even the language it was from. And I doubt she tried very hard to correct me when I said it. But, it stuck with me. In my head, it was "zhwatiky" or "skwatiki".

Since she's gone now, and so is my mother, it's too late to ask for clarification. So, over the past 20 years or so, I've asked all the eastern Europeans I've met if they know the word "zhwatiki" (they never do), or what the word for "fried fat" is in their language (it's never close).

Bored, I did a little Googling, and discovered the eastern European staple, salo: cured pork belly fat. "Salo" sounds like it could be a root of the word I'm looking for; maybe it wasn't "zhwatiky", but rather "salotiky" or "zhalotiky". So, I just needed to find a suffix "-tiky" that meant "fried", or "crispy", or even "little", in some unknown Slavic language. Well, that search didn't pan out.

But, "fried salo" did. It got me to a Wiki article on a Ukranian dish called Varenyky: stuffed dumplings, same idea as Polish pierogis (which north-eastern Americans might know). And these dumplings are often topped with "fried salo bits (shkvarky)".

And "shkvarky" is almost certainly the word, or is related to the word, that I've been mis-hearing in my head for decades as "zhwatiky". I don't know if my grandmother was Ukranian, but she was from that part of the world, so if that's not the word exactly maybe her version of the word is from a nearby country.

Anyway, here's what a plateful of shkvarky looks like.

That's a pretty fancy presentation for pork cracklins! I'm used to eating them out of a greasy wax paper sack.