The Big Scrapple
I’ve been eating what might be Delmarva’s most polarizing food all of my life. My grandparents served it on the weekends alongside eggs, with a drizzle of Karo syrup. It never occurred to me that scrapple could be considered anything but delicious until college. My friends and I would hit up a Baltimore diner with 24-hour breakfasts, and I’d get the same thing every time—scrapple, two eggs any style, homefries, toast. The scrapple never failed to provoke disgust from the non-Marylanders in the group. “What is THAT? Prison loaf?” I would defend my scrapple, regional breakfast meat of the gods. My come-here friends were unconvinced.
To be fair, scrapple doesn’t look like much on a plate. Sliced off the slab and fried, it cooks into a dark brown shingle. Unless you’d had it before, you might not even necessarily identify it as meat. Which makes sense, because meat is just one ingredient in scrapple. Like the name suggests, scrapple is essentially “everything but the oink”—pork scraps leftover from butchering, thickened with a cornmeal porridge and flavored with broth and spices.
Scrapple has been a regional staple in Delmarva for at least 160 years, and probably longer. Similar variations can be found in the South’s liver-mush or Midwestern goetta, with each regional version using a different kind of gruel to bind the meat into a loaf. Delmarva’s scrapple came by way of the German recipe for panhas, brought by German colonists to Southeastern Pennsylvania. Over time, the breakfast meat spread in region and popularity. The panhas buckwheat gruel was swapped for cornmeal and the dish was eventually given the name “scrapple.”
Where other old-school regional foods have faded away (so long, pickled oysters), scrapple remained popular as a Delmarva staple. Today there are many scrapple producers, big and small, in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Brands like Rapa, Habersett, Kirby and Holloway and Parks have legions of diehard, life-long customers. Bridgeville, Delaware—home to three different scrapple brands—even hosts an annual Apple Scrapple festival, complete with a baby beauty contest and mayoral scrapple sling.
Though scrapple might reign supreme as the region’s most ardently loved breakfast meat, it definitely has its critics. It comes down to scrapple’s distinctive taste. You either love it or hate it—there is no in between. The flavor of scrapple is fatty and salty, with an undertone of offal. When correctly prepared, it has a crispy outer layer that gives way to a soft, mealy interior.
“I think the negative reactions people have are really because of the name and the gray color. It’s the kind of flavor and texture you have to grow up eating,” says Maryland foodways historian and regional cookbook collector Kara Mae Harris.
On her blog, Old Line Plate, Harris has explored the origins of the dish and even tried making her own scrapple from scratch. She also grew up eating scrapple at her grandmother’s house in Chincoteague. “It was kind of an assembly line. You’d fry the scrapple, fold it in a piece of white bread, and she could feed a lot of kids that way. I have a lot of memories around it, with both my parents and grandparents.”
According to Harris, the recipe for scrapple hasn’t changed that much. The oldest, from Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s 1845 cookbook Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers, likely represents an even older recipe that cooks would have been familiar with already. Minus the straightforward list of specific pig parts, Lea’s recipe and other early examples are almost exactly what you’d find listed on the back of a package of scrapple at the grocery store.
As a traditional staple, scrapple has been included along with steamed crabs, Natty Boh, and Old Bay as a symbol of Maryland pride. But unlike Old Bay, Harris doesn’t see scrapple transcending its local status anytime soon. “You read about these regional foods that everyone has to try. Some regional tastes can really blow up, like the way that Popeyes has started selling Nashville hot chicken nationally,” Harris said. “But scrapple is really one of those tastes or textures that’s specific to our culture, to our upbringing. That keeps it regional. I don’t see a scrapple sandwich, say, showing up on the McDonalds menu anytime soon.”
That regionalism is part of what makes scrapple so beloved. Like crab “mustard” or oyster shooters, it’s not for everyone. Scrapple’s insider status is the whole point of its latest fandom, the Scrapple Trail. Dreamed up on Facebook by three Marylanders in 2020, the Scrapple Trail now has 19,000 followers and a long list of recommended places to eat scrapple and ways to prepare it. Members have shared places to get scrapple-flavored vodka, scrapple beer, and scrapple nachos. During the pandemic, the group mostly focused on scrapple recipes to try at home. But now that the restrictions have ended, the scrapple trail pilgrimage is up and running again.
The official first stop on the scrapple trail is in Galena, Maryland. Twinny’s Place Restaurant, established in 1980, is a family restaurant serving up Eastern Shore comfort food. Scrapple has been a menu staple since they opened. Jennifer Willey is the third generation of the Price family to own and operate Twinny’s, and Willey says that during a busy week, they might go through 60 pounds of scrapple. “Always Kirby and Holloway. From the beginning, we’ve used the same brand. My grandfather was adamant about quality.”
Since their inclusion on the Scrapple Trail, Willey says they’ve tried out special scrapple dishes for the diehard scrapple fans. “We did scrapple dipped in pancake batter with syrup, scrapple gravy and scrapple fries with Old Bay hot sauce. You can get them from Sysco, but of course we just made our own.”
“We were honored to be included on the Trail,” Willey said. An official Maryland Scrapple Trail certificate is on display by the restaurant’s front door. Decorated with a piece of scrapple in the shape of Maryland, it proclaims Twinny’s Place as the “first stop in the quest to feast upon the Free State’s Finest Scrapple.”
Although Twinny’s has been serving up crispy slices of scrapple for 42 years, Willey says the Scrapple Trail has brought a new kind of scrapple-obsessed clientele to their restaurant. “People are just absolutely crazy about it, and the Trail has such a strong following. We’ve been going out of our comfort zone a little bit, trying to come up with new things for them.”
Twinny’s Place has also racked up a few converts while catering to the scrapple devotees. “We had a regular come in who’s been eating his breakfast here Monday through Friday for 30 years,” Willey said. “He’s a taste tester for us sometimes, but he’d never had scrapple in his life. I gave him a scrapple egg and cheese wrapped in a pancake and he loved it.”
And just like that, another fan of Delmarva scrapple was born, joining the scores of scrapple champions as they seek out, cook up, and defend their breakfast meat of choice.
Learn more about the Scrapple Trail
Twinny’s Place: 162 N. Main Street, Galena, MD
Bridgeville Apple-Scrapple Festival: October 14-15, 2022
