The Pork Diaries: Scrapple

That's the scrapple - front and center!

Last year, it was at least a week before Mary and I were able to enjoy some of the fresh pork from my butchering adventure.  This year, the delay was less than 24 hours - for me at least, since Mary is still waiting - and the first thing I tried was the one furthest from my mind!

David’s family was out of town and we decided that we’d go and enjoy a beer at the Mimslyn Inn on Saturday night.  There was a good scene there as always, this time with Acoustic Thunder playing, and with a mix of out-of-towners and locals hanging around the bar and at the tables.  One of the out-of-towners good-naturedly yelled “Free Bird” at the end of each song during the second set…I have to admit that I don’t remember if that request was honored.

Soon enough it was closing time, and David started telling me about the new “smoke free environment” over at Uncle Buck's.   I was surprised at the thriving scene happening in the lounge there – very surprised, and I’ll leave it at that.

It was getting late, and David suggested maybe some breakfast when we got to his place and I dropped him off.  That sounded good, and next thing I knew, he’d broken out some farm-fresh eggs and some (even fresher) scrapple from the butchering that we’d just completed that morning!

The scrapple maestro.

I made note last year of the authoritative Wikipedia article about scrapple, which is also called pon haus by the Pennsylvania Dutch (or simply “pudding” in our butchering shed).  You can find that here:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple.  However, the unfortunate redundant use of terms like hog offal and mush in that article are not likely to win many new fans.

Getting back to the fine breakfast David was whipping together, he fried the scrapple up in the traditional style, getting it crisp around the edges.  I dressed mine up with some sweet pepper jelly (thanks again, by the way, for sharing a jar of that!).  It was pretty good…still not the first pork product I’ll reach for in the freezer, but I can enjoy it once in a while.

And that’s important to remember.  Because if you don’t have scrapple, “What the hell is the point of butchering a hog?”