The Way We Ate: The Great Scrapple Correspondence of 1872

The author of the following is my new hero of American literature:

To the Editor of the New-York Times:

Let a few of your economists try the following recipe and they will find it is all it is cracked up to be: Take a calf’s left hind leg and let it hang until it will just stay hung without falling, then take it down, after cutting the bone out chop the meat into pieces about the size of a walnut, put them on the roof in a rain-storm for twenty-four hours, after which (if a cat don’t get them) boil with a pound of licorice-root, let the lot gently simmer for a few minutes and then add a paper of Lorillard’s century tobacco with a little old rye whisky, and you will have the meanest mess under the sun except scrapple.

ANTI-SCRAPPLE

Great article because (1) scrapple is great, and (2) the article shows human nature to be a constant: "[a] steampunk prototype for online food discussion. It’s all there: the pseudonymous “usernames,” the off-topic ranting, the preoccupation with pork fat. In short, it’s a modern-day food thread in very slow motion."