Who would have imagined that the humble Italian frico would spawn a whole freaking American snack food category? Once the narrow province of frugal Friulian home cooks who grated the rinds of their local Montasio cheese onto hot skillets to crisp it into lacy wafers, frico was, until recently, a truly niche dish*.
Over time, in Italy and abroad, frico made its way to swanker settings, from fine restaurants, where it’s been used as a garnish for charcuterie boards and entrées; to upscale bars, where frico’s artisanal look makes for stylish nibbling and its intense saltiness serves as a boon to beverage sales. By the 1980s, you could find spendy pre-packaged frico in gourmet specialty shops, where it was rechristened “cheese crisps”, in part, no doubt, to avoid sticker-shock in comparison with that plebian chip, the Frito.
Read the entire mouthwatering article at The Cheese Professor
