1997, Maryland, USA: “Scrapple? What the Hell is Scrapple?” I asked our Baltimore record label Pooh-Bah, ChrisX. His answering look of simultaneous pride, disgust and mischief (but zero explanation) made me curious enough to order it in sandwich form.
What came back was an undressed, jellied meat rectangle sitting on a slice of white bread. Its most notable quality wasn’t its hue (a disconcerting grey green) or its texture (are those taste buds?). It was the odor. My band mates distanced themselves from my place setting, because it was radiating the smell of death, puppy breath, and rotting liver.
My disgusted face may have resembled Scrapple at that point, but Chris was buying us dinner in his town, and I was going to eat this local delicacy in appreciation and fear (of his gun collection).
Holding my nose, I tasted what felt like something that was also tasting me back. But I didn’t mistake this for head cheese. That would have been a relief. No, it was more a combination of soft, chunky Spam and meatloaf made out of greying rat carcasses with scraps that happened to be lying on a swine killing floor.
That said, you can kind of see why Scrapple is considered a Mid Atlantic delicacy. Nothing else tastes like it, and that in a way is a triumph the region can claim. I tried to get my Texan band mates to at least TRY Scrapple for this reason. No go.
For the rest of that tour, I ordered Scrapple instantly if the restaurant was insane enough to stock the stuff. It had a use in two ways: No one swiped any of my dinner. And soon after, I was a vegetarian.
**Note: You can’t spell or manufacture Scrapple without crap.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple
TRY THIS, IT'S AWFUL! 