On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 9:12:52 PM UTC-7, isw wrote:

> I've bought and cooked smoked pork chops (kasseler ripchen) for years. A
> few years back the local grocery where I shopped stopped carrying them.
> Recently we moved to a different part of the SF bay area, and I found
> smoked pork chops in the local Hispanic grocery, where they have a very
> nice meat department, with real butchers. So today I bought some.

Dittmer's on El Camino at San Antonio (near Chef Chu) sells lovely
Kassler chops.

>
> They were larger then the kasseler rippchen I'd gotten before, and about
> half the thickness (it seems that nearly all meat is sliced more thinly
> for Hispanic cooks). Note that they were not advertised as kasseler
> rippchen; the label just said (in Spanish) "smoked pork".
>

The Spanish for Kassler Rippchen is Chuleta de Sajonia (Saxony).

>
> When I cooked them (just warmed and seared a bit, in fact), another clue
> that they were not "authentic" kasseler ripchen showed up -- they were
> obviously a lot more moist than the ones I had gotten before. Still very
> tasty, though.
>

More moist -- not smoked so long.

> So the first question is, how did these things become a part of Hispanic
> cuisine? Was it when the Germans migrated there and introduced "oom pah"
> music to Mexico in the 19th century?



> And the second question is, what would be a "traditional" Hispanic
> recipe for smoked pork chops?

Saute in a pan.