The News Journal (2024)

From its beginnings, scrapple has always been a down-on-the-farm homage to the 18th-century addage, "waste not, want not."

Scrapple, of course, is a mid-Atlantic breakfast staple dating to Colonial times and made of unmentionable pig parts, corn meal and spices in some mysterious proportion known only to its makers.

"You are better off not knowing what is in it," one scrapple fan said.

Now, the down-home, farm-inspired breakfast dish has become the subject of a good-natured regional debate between Delaware, the nation's largest scrapple producer, and Pennsylvania, where culinary historians say it originated.

"Scrapple (a species of pork liver-based pot-pudding akin to sausage filling) is a regional food distinctive to southeastern Pennsylvania. It developed out of Pennsylvania Dutch customs based on fall and winter butchering, at which time scrapple was served as a hot porridge to everyone who participated in the butchering event. It was originally a dish only eaten during the winter," said William Woys Weaver, a Drexel University professor and expert on regional cuisine.

But at least three separate media outlets now say that, despite its origins, scrapple has become Delaware's "most iconic" dish. And that includes recent designations from a trio of sources – Slate magazine, Willamette Week and Lonely Planet, a travel guide website.

For its part, Pennsylvania gets cheesesteak or pierogies – not scrapple – from the three separate lists of iconic cuisine from 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Folks in Pennsylvania are not pleased with the theft of scrapple.

"And we totally understand that you had to give Pennsylvania 'thinly sliced top round,' or cheesesteak meat. Sure, but scrapple to Delaware?" was the response from one blog, Philebrity.com.

Another website, Philadelphia Eater, even did a poll asking: "Does Pennsylvania need to step up its scrapple-appreciation game?"

The response from Philadelphians: 62 percent said "yes, we must make this our No. 1 priority."

Willamette Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Portland, Oregon, considered several options before assigning scrapple to Delaware.

"Other dishes considered and rejected: The official state food is the peach pie, a symbol of the state's small but well-loved northerly peach crop. Also: dilly crab dip, broiled chicken and biscuits, creamed-corn pudding, muddle fish stew. Delaware's a little wild," the weekly said.

The rationale from all three media outlets – Delaware might not have invented scrapple but the state has done more than Pennsylvania to elevate its stature.

Among the reasons cited: The nation's largest producer, RAPA Scrapple is in Bridgeville. Bridgeville also hosts an annual fall Apple-Scrapple Festival that attracts thousands of visitors. And Dogfish Head brewery in Milton recently debuted a first-ever scrapple beer, which sold out within hours of its unveiling at its brewpub in Rehoboth Beach.

And the Kirby & Holloway factory in Delaware plans to soon market a "Courthouse Scrapple" that is made with beer from the 16-Mile microbrewery in Georgetown.

Plus, the annual Delaware-centric MidAtlantic Wine and Food festival always includes an event devoted to scrapple, called, appropriately, "Scrapplegasm."

"It is the defining breakfast meat of the mid-Atlantic," said festival spokesman JulieAnne Cross.

And, although scrapple is indeed available for breakfast at countless restaurants throughout the mid-Atlantic region, a number of Delaware chefs have discovered innovative ways to use scrapple for meals other than the first one of the day.

At Papa Grande in Rehoboth Beach and Fenwick Island, the chefs make their own goat scrapple and use it in dishes like tacos and burritos, according to Douglas Ruley, executive chef for SoDel Concepts.

At the innovative La Fia restaurant in Wilmington, they have offered duck scrapple on the menu "for a long time."

At Michele's restaurant at Dover Downs, site of one of the wine and food festival scrapple events last year, executive chef Mike Daniels said they have experimented with a number of non-breakfast dishes, including buffalo scrapple. "We do try and change it up," he said.

"All of this shows how seriously we take our scrapple in Delaware," said Mark Nardone, food writer for Delaware Today magazine.

None of which impresses the editors of the Philebrity website in Philadelphia.

"Sure, Delaware's got a scrapple festival, but we shouldn't just give it to them because they've got nothing else. At the very least we'll share it with Delaware, but it belongs here," they wrote.

But the Philadelphia Eater's Cindy Szkaradnik was ready to admit defeat after Dogfish produced its scrapple beer.

"With Delaware outpacing us in scrapple production and drink innovation, and even New York coming out with breakthroughs like the scrapple waffle, is it time to worry we've lost our edge?" she wrote. "Frankly, Pennsylvanians really dropped the ball on this one."

Regional food expert Weaver, author of a book called "Country Scrapple," does not think Pennsylvania should concede the scrapple crown.

"The choice of scrapple as the iconic Delaware food based primarily on the fact that one factory makes it is purely glib journalism at its very worst," he said. "Are there any farmers in Delaware who still make scrapple? You will find thousands of farm families in Pennsylvania who still make their own scrapple. Pennsylvania has gotten stuck with cheesesteaks because again, travel journalism has created that myth."

Several Delaware-based chefs also would be in favor of another selection as the state's most iconic dish.

"I am probably not the best person to ask since scrapple is my least favorite food," said Jessica Wiggins, co-owner of the Blue Water Grill in Millsboro. "We do not offer it on the menu."

Her preference: "I would think chicken or fish should be what Delaware is known for considering the number of chickens produced here and the fact that we are surrounded by water."