Gathering the 50 iconic state dishes has been an exhilarating process, and most joyful of all has been the foodie reaction to the prospect of sampling all of America's greatest dishes under one roof — lobster rolls from Maine, fish tacos from California, barbecue from Missouri and so on.
Gathering the 50 iconic state dishes has been an exhilarating process, and most joyful of all has been the foodie reaction to the prospect of sampling all of America’s greatest dishes under one roof — lobster rolls from Maine, fish tacos from California, barbecue from Missouri and so on.
However, one iconic state dish does not generate the same level of excitement — scrapple, from Delaware. I personally cannot wait to taste RAPA’s Delaware scrapple in St. Louis, but I’m a little different when it comes to foods that are derived from the, shall we say, exotic parts of animals.
The national antipathy toward offal is worth a reflective thought or two.
Call it what it is
What the French frankly call les abats — “things from the slaughterhouse” — are worshipped in France. In Italy. In Spain. In Germany. Practically every country in the world has a passion for organ meats, and for the high-labor meat extractions from the extremities of animals.
Not Americans. Yes, we have become much more adventurous in our food choices in recent years, but many Americans draw the line at offal. Even the word that we use seems to carry a negative charge, as if something is “off” in these foods.
There are many psychological underpinnings to this national dislike, but probably the chief issue that divides Americans from Europeans and Africans and Asians is the aspirational basis of life here. Many of our grandparents and great-grandparents were immigrants, and often low-income immigrants. They brought to the U.S. the traditional foods of their overseas life — tripe, brains, kidneys, etc. These items have long been staples overseas, in large part because they cost less than other types of protein. But in America, things are different. Immigrants are encouraged to aspire to the American dream, to move up the socioeconomic ladder in every way, including dinner.
Say “pig’s feet” to a millennial in America today, and you’ll likely elicit an uneasy reaction. But say “pied de cochon” to a successful 30-year-old in Paris today, and he or she will likely wax rhapsodic and nostalgic about la France profonde, about the life on the farm that the grandparents had, about a much simpler and more beautiful time. To the American, a symbol-loaded treat is a thick and expensive Porterhouse steak, the essence of upward mobility, but to the urban Frenchman, symbol-loading often takes the form of guts.
It’s not unfair to say, I think, that Americans in one sense are a little less honest than eaters around the world. Others don’t mess around with the identity of what’s on their plates. If it’s stomach, call it “stomach,” if it’s brains, call it “brains.” Other cultures are in love with whole fish, but in America, many between the coasts grew up with fish sticks, rectangular attenuations of the piscine life that preceded them. The food we are known for around the world is hamburgers, which never make you think about the steers who gave their flesh to your Big Mac.
What seems most objectionable to us are foods that once had a readily identifiable function: “Eeew … feet! That pig once stood on those feet!” Even worse, though, are organs like kidneys, usually served whole. “Eeeew! You can see the damned thing! And it used to process urine!”
This American peculiarity even leads to what I think is a curious ethical mix-up. “You’re eating an animal’s heart?” an American diner might ask with horror. “How could you do that to the poor steer? Have you no respect for the animal?”
Ironically, however, it’s precisely the opposite that is true. The diner with no respect is the one who goes along with a system that slaughters a 500-pound steer only to extract no more than a two-pound beef tenderloin from it. The nobility of the animal is in dying for the good of many people, not in dying for two pounds of expensive meat that feeds four wealthy people.
OK, so … what is scrapple?
To return from the the ethical and the socioeconomic to the gastronomic — so many organ meats and extremities taste wonderful, and have wonderful textures. I shall never forget the joy in Spain, gobbling one whole lamb kidney after another, hot off the grill.
So it is with the East Coast’s grand contribution to “variety meats,” scrapple. Simply, it is a solid loaf composed of many secret porcine parts, cooked together with fat and often cornmeal, yielding a sliceable chunk of deliciousness. In Pennsylvania and in Delaware, the states that constitute the epicenter of the scrapple world, breakfast ain’t breakfast without a griddled slice of scrapple along with your eggs, replacing the ham, bacon or sausage that most Americans eat.
On Oct. 12 and 13 the annual Scrapple Festival will take place in Bridgeville, Delaware, which happens to be the hometown of RAPA Scrapple, our honored Flavored Nation participant. Intriguingly, they have chosen to identify their St. Louis entry not as simply scrapple. They have more experience than anyone in gauging the reaction of people not from that part of the country to the word “scrapple” so, instead, they’ll be adding a trendy word to the basic product, and serving up — you ready? — Scrapple Sliders!
I can’t wait to get mine!
David Rosengarten is content director for FLAVORED NATION. He has won a James Beard Award for his cookbook “It’s ALL American Food,” and another Beard Award for his newsletter, “The Rosengarten Report.” Rosengarten appeared in the first show on the Food Network, and went on to appear in approximately 2,500 Food Network shows, including his cooking show “TASTE.” Find out more at flavorednation.com.