I should have known that I was on to something when my spell check didn’t recognize the word “scrapple.” But anyway, today, November 9th, is National Scrapple Day.
I’m not sure who proclaimed it so, and by what authority, but as far as I’m concerned, scrapple is something worth celebrating.
Like most things from your childhood, you sort of the everyone’s life experience is similar, or even identical to yours, and it was a total shock to me to find that there are people in the world who didn’t even know what scrapple is.
Scrapple is a pork product, originating with the Pennsylvania Dutch, made with the parts that aren’t good enough for sausage, combined with corn meal and spices, served sliced and fried. The “not good enough for sausage” part should be a clue.
I can’t say that scrapple was one of my favorite foods growing up, it was just, well, something we ate for breakfast, sort of high protein version of oatmeal.
We raised our own hogs, two every year, and we sent them off to be butchered. Contrary to advice that most people give (and get) when raising animals for slaughter, we always named ours, and I was quite proud the year my family named the hogs after me, and my best friend Marie. (I have no idea what Marie’s parents thought of the whole thing.)
And while other people wanted to live “high on the hog”, scrapple reminds me that it’s not too bad living “low on the hog” either.