[Sca-cooks] types of corn bread?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 3, 2006, at 8:33 AM, Elaine Koogler wrote:

>> Scrapple: Although most often cooked like polenta with
>> "scraps" of meat, onion, etc added. Cooled and then
>> slice and deep-fried. Can also be made like spoon
>> bread with additions of meat, onions and cheese etc.
>>
> This is actually a Pennsylvania Dutch/ German thing, I think.  My  
> grandmother (Shenandoah Valley of Va) used to make it...cornmeal  
> mixed with pork "parts", then formed into a loaf.  We fry it, but  
> I've never seen it deep-fried...nor have I seen it done like  
> spoonbread.  The best I've head since she passed away has come from  
> the local Amish market in Annapolis...but I did find some excellent  
> scrapple at the Restaurant Supply Depot (Jetro) up near Baltimore.

I'm having a hard time with this view of scrapple as polenta-with- 
meat, too. Nearly every nation (possibly not Hindu or strict Buddhist  
populations) has some form of meat-and-grain sausage or pudding, be  
it haggis, white puddings, various forms of kishka, etc. I'd put  
scrapple in that category: it's clearly, if you look at a scrapple  
recipe, a meat dish with cornmeal added (and it doesn't have to be  
cornmeal, either).

It may be a fine distinction, but every scrapple recipe I've ever  
seen has begun with a hog's head, and even though the dish generally  
contains some cornmeal, it's no more a part of the cornbread family  
than fried catfish would be.

Adamantius


"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04