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Happy National Scrapple Day!

I think it’s hilarious that today is “National” Scrapple Day, considering: (1) you can only get the stuff in a relatively small portion of the country and (2) in places where it is available, a solid 85% of the people won’t touch the stuff. But maybe what this horrendously under-appreciated delight needs is a day of observance to boost its reputation.

For those of you who don’t live in the mid-Atlantic states, I suppose that scrapple deserves a little explanation. Essentially, it’s a meat product made using pig offal. After the butchers have taken the “desirable” cuts off the pig, the rest gets boiled, the meat is minced and grain (cornmeal, usually) and spices are added to thicken the mixture into a loaf.

Once it gets to your kitchen or diner, it’s either pan- or deep-fried and what you get is a wonderful slice that is crunchy on the outside, smooth and creamy on the inside. There is a rich, meaty flavor here that you’re never going to get from a lifeless cut of meat like a quick-fry pork chop. Do yourself a favor and stop in a diner during your next trip through South Jersey or Eastern Pennsylvania.

I understand that scrapple can be scary. Shit, just the word is creepy. There’s the vaguely Germanic sound and the unfortunate inclusion of “scrap” and/or “crap.” But what really gets me is when I tell someone how much I enjoy it and they come back with: “But don’t you know what’s in that?!?” Yes, I do, which makes me like it even more. Here’s why…

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Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: Joe Bastianich Works Hard, Plays Hard

The latest and greatest news about celebrity chefs, served up buffet style.

– Joe Bastianich celebrates the completion of a marathon the same way I do: with plenty of booze. Of course, he actually ran in the marathon where as I just read about it in the news. Also, after losing 45 lbs, Joe apparently turned into a completely different person. (Compare the photo above to this one.)

-ZOMFG liberal foodies’ heads are exploding everywhere today with the news that MICHELLE OBAMA will actually appear on Iron Chef. This was in the New York Times today, so apparently it’s not a joke.

– Click through to find out about Emeril’s new burger bistro. Also to find out where Joe Bastianich’s 45 pounds went.

After the jump…an Olympian goes another round, Fox prepares to ruin another English import and a former Top Cheftestant goes whole hog.

in Bacon / Celebs / Politics / TV 2 comments

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Bachelorhood is the Mother of Invention

Having been married for almost three years now, I forgot how much of a mess my cooking was when I was flying solo.

More than anything, it was a matter of laziness. Laziness when it came to picking out and shopping for ingredients, and laziness when dinner time rolled around and I balked at the notion of busting my hump on a meal for one. So there were plenty of simple pasta dishes and takeout, accompanied by by an occasional flash of inspiration that foreshadowed the foodie I would become once I was cooking for an audience.

One such bit of creativity was the “Hot Dog Sandwich.” Typically, I’d stop at the Wawa on the ride home from work, pick up an eight inch Italian roll and fill it with a couple of boiled hot dogs and the usual condiments. If this doesn’t strike you as particularly creative, then you understand how dire the whole situation really was.

This all came back to me last month as Mrs. TVFF headed off for a press junket in New Orleans and I quickly regressed to my old self, relying on leftovers from earlier in the week and whatever mismatched ingredients happened to be sitting around the house. Arriving home after work and not having a plan, I noticed a couple of hot dogs in the freezer — Trader Joe’s Uncured Hot Dogs…good stuff. I quickly began scouring the kitchen for an appropriate delivery device.

As you can tell from the photo, the only available option was a couple of orphaned hamburger buns. Although aesthetics aren’t everything to me, I realized I needed to do something to overcome the problem posed by the round bun and the long sausage. This is where a little flash of improvisation came in.

in Sandwich 6 comments

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Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

Never let it be said that Endless Simmer’s stories don’t have staying power. Almost a full year after our Top 10 Food Pun Halloween Costumes post ran, Skye recognized himself in one of the photos:

Where on earth did you find that picture, that is me in my black eyed pea costume 4 years ago? so random coming across it

Meanwhile, nobody was scared off by the thought of blood sausages, but Jason Sandeman illustrated that old-as-the-hills saying: “Never send an Englishman to buy your French meats.”

I once ordered these sausages by mistake from the butcher due to my heavy English accent. I tried ordering “Bidene de porc” but it came out as “Boudaine de Porc”. So I recieved this huge 5 kilogram sausage coil. Good times.

Have a happy Halloween from everyone at ES!

(Photo: Overduebook)

in Holiday 1 comments

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Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: Don’t Bug Rachael Ray!

The latest and greatest news about celebrity chefs, served up buffet style.

– Rachael Ray‘s event at a New York school cafeteria had an unexpected, six-legged special guest!

– Apparently, the sign of a true foodie is your participation in a web-only mini series. Tony Bourdain goes the animated route while Tom Colicchio and Todd English talk style for Diet Coke.

After the jump…more Top Chef news than you can shake a stick at and a story about Jeffrey Steingarten, who you would probably like to beat with that stick.

in Celebs / TV 3 comments

by tvff

There Will Be Blood (Sausage)

How do you get your wife to buy the main ingredient for dinner without letting her know exactly what it is?

Keep referring to it as “boudin noir.”

OK…I wasn’t exactly conducting a top-secret operation when I asked her to stop by Salumeria Biellese in Manhattan to pick up some blood sausages. She’s usually pretty agreeable about trying new and exotic items, particularly when they get the TVFF seal of approval.

Still, I wasn’t sure how well this would go over, so I stuck with the more vague French name and hoped that she wouldn’t bother looking over any ingredient list on the package. The jig was up when she and a co-worker took a photo of the sausages on her phone to show me and they noticed that the second or third item was “pig’s blood,” but I think that actually earned her some cred in the office for being adventurous.

And so it was time to bring these sanguine sausages home for an authentic French bistro-style preparation, courtesy of a recipe from Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook…

in Pig 3 comments

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Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

Thanksgiving may be more than a month away, but the ES commenters have already begun planning for their turkey prep . The consensus is that brining the bird is the way to go. And the benefits of that salty bath go beyond juicy meat, according to Summer:

Brined turkeys don’t simply yield the most succulent, delicious meat — they make awesome gravy, too. Just remember that the drippings will be salty, so don’t add any extra salt, and use plain water rather than broth. All it will need is a little bit of fresh-ground pepper. I make gravy right in the roasting pan, just whisking in flour and warm water.

Republican Congressmen aren’t the only ones imagining that “Muslim spies” are infiltrating our most cherished national institutions. Jeb pointed out some suspicious looking characters among the creepy Halloween foods:

I thought, at first glance, the Mummy Dogs were Taliban Dogs…is that weird?

It seems that our very own Brittania has some strong feelings about the relative quality of the glossy cooking magazines:

We lost he likes of Gourmet and the potential downsizing of Bon Appetit for the likes of FN Magazine- Food Magazine for Dummies.

(Photo: emotionaltoothpaste)

in Fowl / Holiday / Politics 0 comments

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