Pan-rabbit?
Pig snouts?
A whole boatload of cornmeal?
Just what on earth actually is scrapple?
And why do so many people love it?
The only way to find out is to watch until the end.
Scrapple haters will often argue that the meat product’s mysterious composition means
this breakfast meat is not to be trusted.
Beyond the fact that most people don’t know what’s in it, the name “scrapple” is
also a case of mistaken identity.
Scrapple is a term that came about when the English encountered the Pennsylvania Dutch
food panhaas.
Panhaas is a German word used to describe "pan rabbit," or rabbit that has been pan-fried.
Panhaskroppel is the complete German term for "pan rabbit" and skroppel, which translates
to "a slice".
The connection between the words skroppel and scrapple are only a few letters apart
and clear to connect.
Panhaas rings like a Germanic word, but the creation of scrapple is attributed to the
Pennsylvania Dutch.
So, which group is the one that brought this succulent foodstuff to our plates?
You might think the naming rights to scrapple would be contested between several proud populations.
But if you're from Atlantic Coast states, then you probably know that the Pennsylvania
Dutch and the German people are actually one and the same.
Despite being mistakenly called Dutch, it was German immigrants who first began sizzling
scrapple on the shores of America.
Recognizing that the Pennsylvania Dutch are German means that Northern and Western Europeans
can comfortably consider themselves inspirational to the development of scrapple.
So as history would have it, ancient Gauls had a tradition of cooking foods closely related
to scrapple long before the meat arrived in America.
As for the American scrapple, you only have to trace the expansion of the Pennsylvania
Dutch across the continent to see how it expanded on our taste buds.
Various timelines from regional newspapers describe how the Dutch arrived in Pennsylvania
to flee from religious persecution.
These German migrants settled around the Philadelphia area before moving slowly southward to Delaware
and Maryland, as well as westward into Ohio.
They carried their food traditions with them, making it no coincidence that these states
are now proud scrapple strongholds.
So what is scrapple made of exactly?
"It's Classified."
"It's what?"
"It's classified.
I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you."
Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch.
But, It's easier to know where scrapple comes from than it is to know what it is actually
made of.
Secret formulas from specific families and regions aside, there is a general lineup of
ingredients that are often included in scrapple, such as pork kidney and heart.
Some of these offer nutritional value, others are more filler than health food.
Scrapple starts with pork trimmings and spices along with binding ingredients, like grain
meals.
Other additions, like liver, are other common, vitamin-rich add-ins.
Inclusion of liver aside, eating crispy, greasy, fried meats for breakfast every morning doesn't
really constitute a balanced and healthy diet these days.
At some point in the history of scrapple, however, it did.
In 1909, The Montreal Gazette wrote the following about scrapple's health benefits.
"Scrapple-fed children in the country are healthier and make more progress at school."
It was stated that a man who filled up on scrapple could be relied on to do more hard
labor than any others.
The secret component that gave scrapple its consideration of "healthy food" is one that
Americans know well: cornmeal.
The Montreal Gazette had some harsh words for scrapple itself, despite glowing comments
about the benefits that consuming it delivers.
In particular, the newspaper claimed that men who ate scrapple could go out on the coldest
days and, quote, "laugh at the winds," thanks to the key, heat-making ingredient of cornmeal.
Cornmeal is one of America's oldest food traditions as it was given to settlers by native populations.
However, it wasn't known for use in scrapple until Europeans reached the American continent.
Before they were the Pennsylvania Dutch, German cooks used buckwheat flour as the choice component
to hold their panhaas together.
Cornmeal was not yet available.
However, they shared this beloved breakfast food with English settlers, who likely would
have introduced them to the cornmeal they had received from the Native Americans.
The bond between the two foodstuffs remains to this day.
While it’s still possible to find scrapple that's held together with buckwheat, cornmeal
binding is the general rule when it comes to making scrapple.
Scrapple is a regional food through-and-through, so it isn't as widely known in some areas
of the country as it is for people in the Northeast Atlantic area.
But, localized as it may be, scrapple is an earnest part of the American food culture.
So, rather than seeing it as something only available in certain states, scrapple should
be celebrated for its specificity.
And it is!
Farmer's Almanac lists November 9th as National Scrapple Day.
There is no better time to rejoice in the crispy crust of pan-fried scrapple than the
chilly days of late Autumn.
Philadelphians often claim their city as being the birthplace of scrapple, but Delaware finds
a way to honor the dish in bigger ways during the peak season.
The Apple-Scrapple Festival takes place during the middle of October in Bridgeville, and
it's one of the hottest parties in town when it comes to eating up a sizzling slice of
breakfast meat.
There are fun art contests, eating competitions, and everything else you can hope for within
a food celebration.
What's in a name?
The smell of scrapple by any other is just as savory.
Although time has made the modern-day name for this meat-stuff from a long line of ancestors,
there are many other ways to identify it.
Residents of states like New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, can be picky about their
scrapple.
They may even think that their scrapple is one of a kind.
But plates of similar-looking dishes are actually served up and down the Atlantic Coast.
As it turns out, scrapple has a family tree the size of a country.
The key components of scrapple are not that exclusive to the dish.
Combining ground meat, grains, and spices together in a slice of sizzling breakfast
meat is something you can find cooks doing in Cincinnati, for example.
There, the dish is called goetta, and oats are the specific ingredient that separates
their local delicacy from its eastern cousin.
You can find another relative to scrapple in the lower latitudes of the U.S. too.
In North Carolina, it's called livermush.
As the name suggests, the composition is more liver than ground meat, but the golden texture
of a cooked slice is very similar to scrapple.
What is it that makes scrapple so beloved?
Well, it may have something to do with its unique texture.
According to those who grew up on the stuff, a searing skillet is where real scrapple separates
itself from lesser breakfast meats.
Some may claim that crispy bacon is best.
"Bacon!"
But it can be hard to find restaurants that cook it in a consistent way.
When sausage is grilled as crispy as scrapple, it can end with a bite into a dried-out center
that needs some sauce or a little egg yolk.
That's where scrapple comes into play.
Hot scrapple has a crust that crunches even when layered between bread and fried eggs.
The hot oil that bubbles to the surface fills the mouth with salty goodness, and the scent
that rises from a fried slice immediately brings about the sensation of crumbly pieces.
When it comes to scrapple, the texture is the truest form of flattery.
Texture and taste are what traditional scrapple lovers fall for, but foodies are always looking
for new takes on old eats.
It was only a matter of time before scrapple came up for consideration.
Honestly, because the food has been with us for more than a century, it's surprising that
it took food and beverage makers this long to set their sights on scrapple.
But they have, and now it has become much more than breakfast food.
In 2014 Delaware-based brewery Dogfish Head decided to take on a new approach to the world
of breakfast beverages.
In conjunction with regional producer Rapa Scrapple, the craft brewery created a drink
known as "Beer for Breakfast."
It is both inspired by and uses scrapple as an ingredient.
The beer became so popular that Dogfish Head decided in 2017 to bottle it as a seasonal
product.
Love makes people do wacky things.
"Goodbye my loooooove!"
Apparently, this now includes writing poetry about your favorite meat-made meal.
It isn't enough to simply draft up a poem about scrapple, this snack deserves a whole
contest worth of odes.
The competition to become the Shakespeare of scrapple was opened in 2010 at the urging
of a blogger from The Baltimore Sun.
The First Annual edition encouraged aspiring poets to use difficult words such as "offal,
apple, and shrapnel."
Such a challenge didn't stop writers from creating epic testaments to their sizzling
brown muses.
The website What is Scrapple!
recorded a set of poems, specifically haikus [hye-KOOZ] that honor the high art of scrapple
producing and eating.
But poetry writing isn't the only way that artists can display an adoration of scrapple.
Remember the Delaware-based Apple-Scrapple festival?
The BaltimoreSun also reports that one of the most popular events of the festival weekend
has to do with art.
A small, fierce scrapple sculpting contest pits crafters against one another in a bid
to become the Michelangelo of a meat mountain.
It's easy to pick on people who take food seriously, and it's even easier to laugh at
seemingly ridiculous cuisine concepts like meat-flavored alcohol.
However, a food like scrapple deserves our attention, and scrapple is now growing in
notoriety across the country.
But there was a time when scrapple was trendy among foodies before its widespread appeal.
The product has always been thrifty.
For much of American history, thrifty hasn't necessarily meant cool.
There are many people out there eager to speak ill about those who enjoy a thrifty treat,
and dunk on what is an otherwise tasty food that makes use of leftover meat.
As more Americans entered middle-class status, however, we began to prefer new high-quality
meats like beef over frugal scrap cuts and pork.
However, the gourmet food renaissance of whole-animal butchering has been fuel for culinary projects
since the early 2000s.
Further, an increasingly broad appeal has made it possible for Facebook projects like
The Scrapple Trail to go from 600 likes to nearly over 7,000 active users in less than
one year.
For foodies, niche history is the new frontier.
For scrapple lovers, we're just glad everyone else is finally coming around.
Giving your affection to scrapple means that you've got to come to terms with its flaws.
"Never!"
For some, that hasn't been so easy.
In recent decades, snout-to-tail butchers and chefs have shown immense dedication to
scrapple by both selling the once-niche product while also providing education about its traditional
roots.
Before this whole-animal movement took off, there were some who thought that they should
be able to eat scrapple — but without the scraps.
In 1987, The Chicago Tribune reported that Philadelphia historian Kenneth Finkel had
struck out on a solo crusade to have the most offending ingredients removed from the scrapple-making
process.
In Finkel's mind, it was the addition of pig snouts that was a major cause of his concern.
He argued that Philadelphia meatpackers were exploiting scrapple as a way to get rid of
unwanted scraps.
By engaging in this tactic, Finkle felt they were soiling the centuries of positive history
that the food could represent for the city.
With a slogan to "Take the scraps out of Scrapple," Finkel went all-out, even going so far as
to pair with a local chef to create his own scrapple recipe featuring juniper berries
and duck in place of pig snouts and other organs.
Yet, in spite of the collaboration, the restaurant where this chef worked never offered to add
it to the menu — meaning the scrapple we've always known and loved hasn't gone anywhere…and
probably never will.
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