SCRAPPLE
Scrape and clean well a pig's-head as directed in "Pig's-head Cheese," put on to boil in plenty of water, and cook four or five hoursuntil the bones will slip easily from the meat; take out, remove bones, and chop the meat fine, skim off the grease from liquor in pot, and return the chopped meat to it; season highly with salt and pepper, and a little powdered sage if liked, and add corn meal till of the consistency of soft mush; cook slowly one hour or more, pour in pans, and set in a cool place. This is nice sliced and fried for breakfast in winter, and will answer in place of meat on many occasions.
A whole pig's head is the sticking point; everything else in this recipe is straightforward, if long. Plan on the better part of a day and a large pot.
- Sourcing the headA split pig's head is a special order from a butcher, and one head yields a great deal of scrapple, more than most households will want at once. Two or three pounds of bone-in pork shoulder plus a pound of skin-on hock will give a similar gelatin-rich result at a manageable scale.
- The consistency test"Consistency of soft mush" means a batter that just holds a mound on the spoon and slumps back — thick porridge, not dough. It firms up dramatically as it chills, so err toward looser than seems right.
- Adding the mealRain the cornmeal in slowly with the liquor at a bare simmer and stir constantly, or it will seize into lumps. Coarse or medium stone-ground yellow meal is a reasonable modern stand-in for the unspecified "corn meal" of the recipe; instant polenta behaves differently and sets softer.
- The hour of slow cookingThis is the step people skip and regret. Undercooked cornmeal tastes raw and chalky when fried, and the mixture will not set cleanly. Keep the heat very low and stir often — it scorches on the bottom readily.
- Skimming the fatThe recipe has you skim before returning the meat, but it is easier to chill the strained liquor and lift the solid cap off. Leave a little fat in; scrapple with no fat at all fries dry.
- Setting and slicing"A cool place" means the refrigerator: pack into loaf pans, press level, cover, and chill overnight until fully firm. Slice about half an inch thick — thinner slices break apart in the pan.
- FryingUse a well-heated skillet with a film of fat or oil and leave the slices alone until a hard crust forms, four to five minutes a side. Turning too early is what makes scrapple fall to pieces.
- KeepingThe book assumes a cold larder and winter eating. Refrigerated, a loaf keeps about four or five days; it freezes well if wrapped tightly, either whole or in slices.
Scrapple is the classic use for the parts of a hog that could not be sold or smoked, and its name comes straight from "scraps" — the German-speaking settlers of southeastern Pennsylvania made much the same thing and called it panhaas or panhas, "pan rabbit," a name generally read as the same joke as Welsh rabbit: no rabbit in it. What distinguishes it from the many European head cheeses and brawns is the grain. Cornmeal stretched the meat further and, because it set stiff enough to slice and fry, turned a perishable boiling into something that would keep through cold weather. That it "will answer in place of meat on many occasions" is the whole argument for hog-butchering economy.