Scrapple is Good Eats

In the comments to my post about the food industry below MandT mentioned that their Grandma made scrapple. Well so did mine. Considering that we are most likely going to be in for some tough times and we all need to know how to do some 'cheap eats', I thought I would give you folks the recipe for a West Virginia style scrapple. This is 'stick to your ribs' food and it makes a great breakfast with eggs. It sounds kind of funny but it really is good. Really!

Scrapple

1 cup white or yellow cornmeal
1 cup milk (if you are really being cheap you can replace the milk with an equal amount of water)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2-3/4 cups boiling water
8 ounces bulk pork sausage, cooked, drained and crumbled
2 tablespoons butter

In a saucepan, combine the cornmeal, milk, sugar and salt and gradually stir in the boiling water. Cook over low medium heat, stirring frequently until thickened and bubbly. Turn the heat to low and cook, covered, about 10 minutes longer or until it is very thick, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and stir in sausage. Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap to facilitate removal and pour in the mixture. A 7-1/2-in. x 3-1/2-in. x 2-in. loaf pan will be completely filled but if you have a larger loaf(bread) pan that's fine. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Grandma and Mom used to make it the night before for the next morning's breakfast.
When you are ready to serve, unmold and cut into 1/3-in. slices just like you were slicing bread. Dredge both sides in flour. In a big frying pan, melt butter over medium heat and brown the scrapple on both sides.

In the South we serve it with sorghum or molasses but up North they like maple syrup. I also like to reserve the drippings from cooking the sausage and make a milk gravy with lots of black pepper instead of the sweet syrup.

This will make enough for 6 hungry people.

For you culinary 'buffs' here is a little more on scrapple. It is also called "head cheese" in some parts of the country and in Pennsylvania Dutch country it is known as ponhaws or pawnhaus. This comes from fact that in older times it was made from hog scraps and especially the bits of meat from the jowls and head that were left from slaughtering. It often also included offal such as the heart, liver and other bits.