The store had smoked pork tails for $3 - the first time I've seen pork tails of any sort in New Hampshire (I always look for them in Little Cambodia) - so naturally I bought some.

And these were very smoked. The smoked ham hocks I buy aren't all that smoky, but these had been smoked so long they'd dried out a bit - I simmered them for three hours, which gave me five nice-sized tails and a quart of smoked pork stock rich enough to gel at room temperature.

The stock, I'll use for beans or greens.

The tails, I waited until they had cooled some, but were still warm so that everything was supple. This makes it easy to find the bones, see, which popped out pretty simply. Not sure how easy it'd be if you hadn't worked with pork tails before, but ... well.

Tacos!

I deep-fried the boned tails to warm them through, crisp up the skin some, and render out some of the fat. Roasting would've done fine too. After each tail was cooked, I wrapped a corn tortilla around it, pinched the tortilla in place with my tongs, and held it in the deep-fryer to cook the tortilla.

The salsas are just a jarred red salsa (I like Green Mountain Gringo) and that garlic/cilantro/avocado salsa I made the other day. Would've used cheese but didn't have any.

The nice thing about these tacos is that it sounds like a lot of work - it IS a lot of work - but only for the clock. I worked while the tails simmered, took a couple minutes to pop the bones out, did the rest a few days later when I was making lunch.