| | |  Travel & Outdoors 
Importation of Most Chicharrones From Mexico is Now Banned
 David Olson - Press-Enterprise
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January 19, 2010
Don't try stuffing your suitcase with chicharrones if you're returning from certain parts of Mexico unless you have a health certificate.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection began implementing new regulations that ban the importation of pork skins from most Mexican states without an official declaration they were cooked in ways that kill the classical swine fever virus.
Swine fever - which does not affect humans and is not the same as swine flu or the H1N1 virus - is a disease that can be fatal in pigs, and the government wants to prevent its spread into the United States, said Larry Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which requested the importation ban on chicharrones.
Carlos Morαn, who owns a Riverside food market, said he's never heard of someone trying to bring chicharrones back from Mexico.
After all, they're readily available in Southern California at places like his market, where they are served fresh and hot.
The ban does not affect Mexican states bordering California and Arizona because swine fever has not been detected there - importation of pork skins with the meat attached has long been banned.
Who would want to travel hours from the Mexican interior with chicharrones when they often can find them down the street?
A lot of people.
"We see chicharrones all the time," said Jackie Dizdul, a customs spokeswoman in San Diego.
"It's a taste of home," said Leslie Gomez-Montez, a customs-service agricultural field manager who has never found chicharrones that come close to those her U.S.-born grandmother prepares.
"The way my grandmother makes them is very different from what you find in a store," she said.
Reach David Olson at dolson(at)PE.com |
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