Try the bacon-flavored Spam, it’s even better. Fried corned beef hash is great with eggs, too.
To be clear, I personally don’t take mushrooms on my cheesesteaks. I was just listing them as the upper limit of what could possibly be acceptable. And yeah, pretty much any kind of cheese imaginable is acceptable-- I prefer American, but Provolone and Wiz are both common.
And spam doesn’t remotely deserve its reputation. It’s too salty for my tastes, but then, lots of American foods are too salty, with most of them not getting nearly as much scorn as spam.
Spam is delicious and there is a low-salt version if one must.
Charlie Parker wrote “Scrapple from the Apple” in 1947. Jeru covered it, but so did everybody else. Great tune. Bird probably enjoyed scrapple, being a prodigious eater for a junkie.
I love scrapple, and I love “Scrapple from the Apple.”
(For th’ squares: “Jeru” = Gerry Mulligan; “Bird” = Charlie Parker. “Covered it” = played somebody else’s original; “Apple” = New York City. “Scrapple” = scrapple.)
Out of curiosity, since I had never tasted scrapple and had no access to it (I was living in Egypt at the time), I made “scrapple” once from scratch. But I’m putting the word into scare quotes because the recipe I used was a bit high-end to be the real thing - I don’t recall using a lot of organ meat, just a lot of pork, lard, and cornmeal. (It was something like this recipe.
My recollection is that it was tasty, but too much work to justify making it again.
I believe the saying is, scrapple is made from “everything but the squeal”
Here in Maryland, you can find it in abundance in the refrigerated section of any supermarket along side the other breakfast meats.
I’d say Scrapple is strictly an every-now-and-then choice and you can either fry it or broil it in the oven.
I like mine cooked thoroughly with the edges slightly charred and crunchy. Also I may be the only person who spreads jelly on it before eating.
I think it’s mostly just grease and cornmeal, without much solid animal parts at all.
When I was a kid, we had it all the time. Its popularity has dropped off somewhat, except for the jokes about it, but I do like to have it occasionally. However, years ago, I used to write for a zine (remember those?) and someone said “That jellied shit that surrounds it looks like alien jizm.” :o (One wonders how anyone would know what that looks like, but anyway, that took away a bit of the appeal for me.)
It also comes in flavors, including BBQ. Never tried that.
I stopped for breakfast at a diner in Baltimore once, and noticed the menu had both scrapple and grits. Interesting illustration, I thought, of Maryland’s geographic and cultural position between the North and the South.
And yet, they seem like they should go together perfectly.
That sounds like the right sort of place for it!
Scrapple is, essentially, a compacted cube of grits and sausage. Except it would use a really poor quality sausage. Maybe grits and chitlins would be more accurate. Somebody mentioned haggis. If you like haggis, you’ll love scrapple.
Anything with liver in it is anathema to me. I can’t bear the smell of it. So I’m not a scrapple fan even though I’ve never tasted it. My Grandmother loved it and ate it nearly every morning. I couldn’t even walk into the kitchen when she was frying it.
Mine had liver listed in the ingredients, but I really couldn’t taste it. However, it was quite spicy, and it might very well have been, oh, 2% liver. Anyway, it was still good.
Schnuck’s! Do you live in the St. Louis area?
No, but there is one in my town.
In the past, I did live closer to St. Louis, and Schnuck’s is as ubiquitous there as Hy-Vee is where I live now. At one point, I worked briefly in Carbondale, and brought in a box of generic Hy-Vee plastic silverware. One of my co-workers said, “What the $%^& is Hy-Vee?” I replied, “You’ve never been to Iowa, have you?” I then explained that it’s a popular grocery store chain, like Kroger’s, which this area had, or Schnuck’s, which they didn’t.
Scrapple & Grits is good, but Shrimp & Grits is da bomb—particularly Charleston-style.
Villanova: great school, beautiful campus and sweet town on Philadelphia’s Main Line—just a hop, skip and jump from my sister and BIL’s house in Bryn Mahr (I visited often as an undergrad in West Philly). It was a definite downgrade when I spent the next 4 years in Cleveland. But, then I moved to Miami for 4 years, right when Miami Vice premiered on TV. I couldn’t quite pull off the Don Johnson pastel look, but I had fun nonetheless.
Speaking of hoagies (admittedly a departure from scrapple, but still in the Philly Food universe), those too are as easy to make as cheesesteaks, provided you have access to proper rolls (preferably Amoroso).
For Italian hoagies, you must use provolone cheese (smoked provolone if you’re feeling jiggy), and at bare minimum, the following luncheon meats: Genoa or hard salami, capicola and some type of milder ham. If you’re not on a tight budget, include proscuito, mortadela and/or soprassata salami. Don’t be a cheap-ass and put bologna on your hoagie! :mad:
Tibby’s hoagie tips: Mayo is good in egg salad and coleslaw, but it’s not allowed in a hoagie. Use extra virgin olive oil (if your olive oil so much as engaged in oral sex, don’t use it) and lots of it. Sprinkle liberally with oregano, marjoram, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Use a higher % of shredded onion than lettuce. I personally don’t like tomatoes on sandwiches, but, if you’re so inclined, include a layer of those god-forsaken fruity vegetables if you must. Kick it up a notch with banana peppers or jalapeno.
Want to turn your hoagie into an Italian grinder? Put the cheese on top and toast till golden brown.
If, on first bite, you don’t squirt the person seated across from you with olive oil, you fucked up.
It’s my go-to breakfast sandwich meat. Scrapple, egg, and cheese bagel/biscuit/muffin/whatever. Good in omelets, too. I guess I was too much of a snob to eat the the traditional scrapple on white bread with ketchup (gross) growing up. I don’t eat it much these days because I’ve only ever seen it at Giant Eagle and the one brand they have isn’t my favorite. Plus, if I get a pound it’s usually gone at once. Usually cook about 1/2 at a time and eat the first half while the second is cooking, then have sandwiches and leftovers.
Thick slices of scrapple, deep fried so that the outside is crisp (almost burnt, O.K. - burnt) and the inside is soft. Ketchup or maple syrup on top. Delicious!
Huh. I didn’t realize there were any Schnuck’s outside the St. Louis area and maybe mid-MO. In Columbia MO, where I used to live, we had a couple Schnuck’s, but also Hy-Vee and Kroger (under the name Gerbes).
Sorry for the hijack.