I was fascinated by the chapter on the quest for snoots in East St. Louis.

Have you seen snoots anywhere else?

Can you elaborate more on the texture and taste of those things?

Have you eatnen them since?

(OK, I know that was about 10 questions, but what the heck!)

Henry,

Snoots were a specifically St. Louis and East St. Louis delicacy. I knew someone in Chicago who make them, but he was an East St. Louis transplant.

The snoot is mostly skin and fat. It's like cracklins, only without the little bit of meat that you often find beneath the fat of cracklins. But, because they are so thick, the texture ends up somewhere between the crispness of cracklins and the chewyness of cracklins in which all of the fat hasn't been rendered.

The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party the event hosted each summer in New York by Blue Smoke Restaurant, invited some St. Louis snoot makers last year. That was the first time I'd had a snoot since writing the book.

Lolis