BVC Eats: Scrapple

Scrapple is classic white-trash breakfast food, best served fried in bacon grease with honey or maple syrup on top. For more authenticity, top with sorghum molasses. You can get a debased version of this without the pork at places like Bob Evans, but if you want the good stuff, just get on the highway and drive south until you find a diner with the real thing. Another recipe my mother was taught by locals in the Smoky Mountains when she was a kid.

1 lb leftover roast pork, shredded fine
2 cups yellow corn meal
2 quarts rich meat stock
1 stick butter
1 T salt
1 t black pepper
2 T rubbed sage
1 t crushed dried oregano

Boil the stock up with the seasonings. When the stock is boiling, whisk in the corn meal, whisking constantly so it doesn’t lump up. Add the stick of butter and stir until the butter’s melted in. Turn down the heat and let it all bubble, stirring and scraping regularly to make sure it doesn’t burn on. The corn meal should thicken up a lot while it cooks. You’ll have trouble stirring it.

After about 15 or 20 minutes of this, taste it to make sure the corn is all cooked and not grainy any more. If the mush is soft enough, stir in the leftover pork shreds.  Stir until everything is well mixed in.

Turn the mush into a greased glass bread loaf pan. Cool it, then refrigerate it, covered with saran wrap laid right on the surface of the scrapple to prevent it from drying out.

When you want to eat it, slice it thick or thin, fry it in bacon grease on a hot iron pan or griddle, and serve with butter and honey or maple syrup or sorghum syrup. Some people put butter on top, too.