Crunching on Crackling and Stirring the Scrapple

 On Sunday Elliott and I returned, a little hesitantly at first, unsure if yesterday's invitation still stood, and hadn't been given with 'Bud Lite laden' generosity. But as we walked to the back of the garage, familiar faces welcomed us, smiling even more broadly as they spied the cases of beer we carried. We were greeted warmly and invited to come out back where the action was.

 Sam was already hard at work stirring the crackling pot, pork fat with the skin still attached, which when cooked until the skin was crispy, would then be pressed to remove any further liquid fat and then left to dry out. The remaining fat would become lard. On the back of a pickup truck was a batch of crackling made earlier which we were invited to try. Without any hesitation I stuffed a piece into my mouth; it was divine. Crunchy and crispy and oozing with porky goodness.

 

 

I wandered back into the garage where some of the lads were preparing cuts of meat from one of the hogs. Chris held up a fine pair of hams and pointed out a pile that would go through a ban saw to be cut into ribs, joints and more hams. Someone else pointed to the uncut pig and chuckled that it was his ex wife curing on the table, causing an uproar of loud laughter, including my own. But I did have a quick look around me just in case she was there.

The lads dragged the huge second carcass across to a cleared table where Mike and Moe promptly began chopping it up. I'd had a go at moving the pig with Amanda, Moe's wife, and even just pulling it across the table was beyond us.  Amanda grabbed a huge blade, and alongside the men, began slicing. Elliott and I stood well back and watched. Elliott later commented on the slick slicing sound as the blade slid through the huge pig effortlessly.

 

Jerry was outside keeping an eye on the crackling which, by now, had lost its pale fleshy appearance and had turned golden and crispy. Both Elliott and I had a go stirring it, which has to be done continuously to stop it sticking. Once the chunks of fat start floating on the surface and don't need the constant stirring, then they're cooked. Sam cleared out the excess fat, which was completely clear and clean, like water. "Crisco ain't got nothing on this shit." exclaimed Jay, Sam's brother. We all nodded in agreement as we looked down into the pot. Sam also commented that the lard made excellent hand cream. I wasn't quite so enthusiastic about that. The golden chunks were pushed through a press where yet more clear fat dripped into a pot below, and the skins were laid out on the truck bed to dry. I did try one of these but they were more chewy than I liked, they needed to dry out more.

 

                                          

Then it was time to focus on the scrapple pot. I did chuckle when I realized one of the stirring tools was a canoe paddle. But it definitely worked well. Sam said, "Someone's up the creek without a paddle, 'cause we've got it!" 

When we had first arrived, the pot hadn't looked remotely appealing, raw body parts floating in steaming water, but now, several hours later, it resembled a giant stew. Pretty much everything that isn't used for the 'meat cuts' ends up in the pot, kidney, heart, liver, and any excess meat pulled from the bones. "Everything, except for the squeal," said Jerry, "And that's because you can't catch it!" added Chuck. The tongue is kept aside as it's too good to become scrapple, so it was pulled out once it was cooked, then sliced up, everyone taking a piece and closing their eyes in contentment as they chewed. I did the same, it was amazing.

All the meat from the scrapple pot was pulled out by Sam and taken into the garage where it was pulled from the bones, chopped into smaller pieces and then pushed through a grinder. I grabbed some latex gloves to help, it was hot work. I also helped to pull out the meat from the scrapple pot before it went to the garage, using the canoe paddle to blindly grope around the pot for the meat which I then plopped into Sam's saucepan. The smaller pieces were hard to find through the steam and bubbling liquid and I was incredulous when Sam bent down and thrust his hand into the gravy to grab them and make sure there weren't any bones left. These rural lads are made of tough stuff!

Before the last stage of the scrapple making began, the sausage meat was quickly made. The meat that wasn't being put aside for chops, bacon and ribs had been pushed through the grinder and was now in a huge pile on the table. Mustard powder, sage, horseradish, salt and pepper were added and then mixed up by hand. Sam had run a little experiment to show us how different a cooked patty would be, if one had the seasoning added before going through the grinder, or added after having been ground. The patty on the right was the sausage meat with the seasoning added after grinding, and was firmer, while the other patty was "sloppy" as Sam described it. They both tasted equally wonderful after being cooked, though, so I had no preference.

And the it was all hands on deck. The scrapple had to be completed and needed constant stirring as Sam added ingredients. All faces became serious and Elliott and I stood back to watch the process. The 'gravy', from which the bones and meat had been removed, was still boiling over the fire, so the ground up meat was added back into the pot. Salt, pepper, sage, flour and cornmeal were poured in. I was amazed at the quantity of bags and pots that were emptied into the mixture, and secretly wondered if the end product might be too 'sagey' or too thick due to the flour. But Sam didn't bat an eyelid. He steadily poured in the ingredients while other lads kept the mixture moving with paddles or anything that would stir. As it thickened and as arms slowed down, Sam took over, grabbing the canoe paddle from Jerry and grinding the mixture around to an even beat that Jerry picked up on, imitating the scratching noise the paddle made on the bottom of the pot. The mush thickened, looking now like a porridge mix, and slopping occasionally over the side. Once Sam was happy with the concoction, the pot and its heavy molten contents were lifted off the flames and onto the ground. But not without spilling any. A large puddle was inadvertently tipped onto the grass, and to everyone's amusement, Mike accidentally trod and slipped in it. This was even funnier because Mike has a shoe fetish, owning a large collection of designer footwear and was wearing a treasured pair of Nike tennis shoes. But help was close at hand in the form of a hosepipe and he was soon washed off. Regarding the puddle on the floor, Jerry said the cat and the bear would take care of that, and I wondered if that would be true. Meanwhile Sam had grabbed a large saucepan and had begun ladling it into foil containers on the ground. These were then carried carefully into the garage and placed on the table to cool down. Before long, the huge cauldron was empty and Chris was given the saucepan to lick clean. Mike turned down this offer as he only liked his scrapple cooked, which I understood, even though technically the scrapple was now cooked. But once cooled down and stored in a fridge or freezer, it would be made even more tasty by spending a few minutes fried in a pan until brown on both sides. Yet I still had a lick from an offered spoon of the mixture and it tasted heavenly.

I made a short video of the scrapple pot and Elliott posted his photos and a superb video here. He really focused well on taking wonderful portraits of the people involved while I was more focused on the methods these folk used. His photos are amazing. We ended up spending several hours with this crowd, many of whom, we found out later, didn't know each other either before this day. They had all come together to help cut up the pigs and make the scrapple and crackling. It had been a tremendous weekend for us, and one that I knew we'd be lucky to witness again. It had been a stroke of luck that we had passed them and stopped the day before, and a show of immense warmth and friendliness that had allowed us to return the next day and watch the processes. We had shared many laughs with these wonderful people, who had all allowed us to 'get in the way', stick cameras in their faces and ask countless questions, and then sent us home with waves and a huge container of hot scrapple, which I balanced on my lap all the way to the Blue House on top of my jacket.

We met Sam the following weekend, at his food truck location, and gave him printed photos and a thumb drive of photos, then stopped at Moe's and Amanda's house to drop off more prints, a journey that was taken after eating a mighty fine breakfast of eggs, toast and some extremely delicious golden brown slabs of scrapple.