Gandy Dancer. Though the exact origin isn’t exactly known, what is known is that a gandy dancer is a railroad worker, and that is is one heck of a manual job. To replace a tie that holds up the railroad bed, you first have to remove the rocks that are in place all around the existing ties. Then you use large metal clamps (that look a lot like the ones used by the underwater loggers in Chimney Sweep) to pull the ties out from under the rails.
When you get the existing ties out, you can rake out all the rocks you missed to make a nice flat surface, put the new ties in, pound in the stakes (did you know there are 15 steps to do this), load up fresh new rocks so that the dirt on the old ones doesn’t cause problems and then you’ve got yourself a nice, safe section of track again.
Sausage Maker. Down in the bayou, they know how to make sausage. Load up all the parts to put in the sausage, cook it all up, grind it together, put the casings onto the machine, then just squeeze these into the casings and hang them to dry. Easy. As it turns out, they make cracklin’, too, and who better to learn from than the King of Cracklin’.
Cracklin’, as it turns out, is a lot like pork rinds, but instead of just the skin, you get the skin, the fat, and even some meat. First you have to take the frozen pork and cut it with a saw. Then you take these slices of mostly frozen pork and cook it in large drums of oil for a while until it’s ready, when you take it out and then throw it all back in for just a minute or two to pop the bubbles and puff it up all nice-like. Mmm-mmm.
Skull Cleaner. This last stop in this episode had some of the nastier concoctions we’ve seen. The folks that run this place specialize not just in skulls, but entire skeletons. As you may know, skeletons typically contain fur and meat and all sorts of things, so the first thing you have to do is clean those things off of the bones. One of the more common ways to do that is to just boil them clean. It apparently creates quite an aroma.
Of course there are acids and other ways of cleaning too, and once you get the skeleton mostly clean, you get to bleach the skeleton to get rid of those unsightly stains on the bones. The final step is to assemble the skeleton so that it’s ready for purchase – or to hang out in the museum, which just appears to be for the owner’s enjoyment. He bought a whale that came in while the show was there. Not sure what he plans to do with that, other than just have it in the museum.
I’d really like to try some cracklin’. Is there somewhere I can get some?
I think this is the site of the Cracklin’ King, and it says they “ship on request”, so you may want to contact them to see if you can get some direct from them – it’ll be just like you visited along with Mike.