Food History
Why Scrapple Is The Mystery Meat of My Dreams
Over 400 years old and still trending, scrapple is rustic, locally grown, and—oh yeah—literally snout-to-tail.
“What’s in it?” I asked my dad, who occasionally enjoyed a crisp slab of scrapple with his eggs on Saturday mornings.
“Everything in the pig but the oink,” he said.
Growing up in northern Delaware, scrapple was something we always had in the fridge—but, picky eater that I was, I never touched the stuff. My dad’s evocative description, paired with its less-than-savory name, was enough to put me off scrapple for most of my childhood. Though it was made with love (and often) in my mid-Atlantic home, the mystery meat product failed to rise above a grey, jellied block of odds and ends (though I was, and still am, never above a hot dog).
It wasn’t until I hit adulthood that I learned to appreciate scrapple in all its glory, and started packing frozen blocks to take back with me to school. There, back in my college dorm, I’d slice off a thick slab each morning, fry it in a skillet, and eat it piping hot. Good scrapple should develop a hauntingly crispy crust, one that yields to funky, creamy insides.
As Amy Strauss, author of Pennsylvania Scrapple: A Delectable History, tells me, it’s been that good ever since its inception in the 1600s, when German settlers arrived in what would eventually be Pennsylvania. To fuel long, wintry days of farming, they needed a staple that would keep them full—and cheaply.
Their solution arose when they encountered Indigenous maize, which, at that point, was already being dried and ground into meal by the Algonquin and Iroquois peoples of the area. “They mixed cornmeal with all of the leftover scraps from their day’s butchering and voila—scrapple was born,” Strauss says. The cornmeal allowed the German settlers to stretch trimmings (brain, snout, eyes, probably the oink) into more meals than eating the meat alone would provide. Simple, hearty, and inexpensive, scrapple became a dietary staple, and remained a go-to source of protein for the country-dwelling settlers for the following centuries.
According to Strauss, the 1800s was the first time scrapple made any notable appearance outside of a farmland setting—and only because ex-farmers-turned-industrial-workers grew nostalgic for it. Philadelphia had begun to lead the nation in industrial textile, ship, and oil production, luring generational farmers away from agricultural work. The pork product was no longer just a thrifty food, but a comfort to workers as they navigated this transition; sold at the public market, Philly’s Reading Terminal Market, it went fast: “Scrapple went from being something that was a household breakfast meat on the farm, to quality, working-class food at the factory,” Strauss explains. Although these urban transplants were no longer farmers by trade, they could honor their agricultural roots (and stay full in an inexpensive, delicious manner) by eating the beloved dish.
Although it made its way out of the farmlands and into the city, scrapple struggled to gain traction outside of the mid-Atlantic region, mainly due to its reputation as a “catch-all” food made from butchering scraps, only suitable for working country people, Strauss explains. Strauss describes the account of one Pennsylvanian who moved to cosmopolitan New York City in the 1870s, only to find himself in a cold, scrapple-less world: “He couldn’t find anything like it in New York. He was having to eat pork chops for breakfast.”
Scrapple is not only decidedly anti-cosmopolitan—it's anti-change, as well. Strauss mentions one Lancaster-based company that tried selling maple-flavored and spicy varieties, only to find that the tried-and-true original remained their most popular product. “People don’t want you to mess with a good thing,” she says. “It’s a part of people's DNA. They were raised with it—they don’t need it to be fancy.”
While scrapple endured for centuries thanks to its nostalgic and regional appeal, the relatively recent rise of the slow food and nose-to-tail movements has resulted in a new set of admirers. Indeed, the pork-and-cornmeal-mush’s rustic simplicity and inherently waste-free recipe lend it extremely well to both schools of thought: You don’t get slower than a pre-Industrial, mid-Atlantic pork-and-Indigenous-corn product, and more nose-to-tail than with, well, a jellied block of nose-to-tail.
Though, for the record, most modern-day producers are instead turning to richer, fattier cuts like the heart, liver, skin, and tongue. This approach doesn't go so far as to take scrapple from humble to high-on-the-hog, but it certainly indicates how our palettes have shifted from the 17th century to the 21st: We’ll try exotic foods because we can, not because we have to.
Much like the identity of the mid-Atlantic region itself—trapped between the Northeast and American South, scrapple scrappily refuses to be categorized. It can be eaten for breakfast or dinner, with hot sauce or grape jelly, with or without an egg on top, on its own or in a sandwich. As long as you get it as crispy as humanly possible before digging in, you’re doing scrapple justice. All that’s left for you to do is to spread the gospel to a non-believer: The best approach is probably just frying up a piece to taste.
As Strauss puts it, “Once you try it, you can’t not love it.”
| 2 1/2 | pounds pork butt, preferably bone-in, skin-on |
| 1 1/2 | pounds pork spare rib tips |
| 1 | tablespoon peppercorns |
| 4 | bay leaves |
| 6 | cloves garlic, halved |
| 1 | large onion, halved |
| 1 | sprig fresh thyme |
| 1 | sprig fresh oregano |
| 1 | sprig fresh sage |
| 1 | cup cornmeal |
| salt and pepper, to taste |
| 2 1/2 | pounds pork butt, preferably bone-in, skin-on |
| 1 1/2 | pounds pork spare rib tips |
| 1 | tablespoon peppercorns |
| 4 | bay leaves |
| 6 | cloves garlic, halved |
| 1 | large onion, halved |
| 1 | sprig fresh thyme |
| 1 | sprig fresh oregano |
| 1 | sprig fresh sage |
| 1 | cup cornmeal |
| salt and pepper, to taste |
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Written by: Sara Coughlin
Popular on Food52
44 Comments
On all diner menus
***** Note to those trying it for the first time, slice it thin and DON'T FOOL WITH IT until you can see it's good and brown on the bottom side. The wonderful mystery is that the outside gets a thin layer which is just as crispy as a good gingersnap while the inside is soft and creamy. So good.
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