February 01, 2017
Have any idea what's considered Pennsylvania's grossest food? Hint: You can order it at nearly any diner across the state, and if you're a born and bred Pennsylvanian, chances are you've probably had it.
But some may still call it an acquired taste.
Thrillist, a food and travel website, recently published a list called "Every State's Grossest Food (That People Actually Love)," and the dishes that were chosen for the region don't come as much of a surprise.
Scrapple came in as the pick for Pennsylvania, while pork roll stole the show in New Jersey.
For anyone outside Pennsylvania, I guess it's fairly easy to understand the immediate aversion to the food. Here's what Thrillist had to say:
Have you ever baked a Funfetti cake and then left it out in the sun for 16 years? You'd probably end up with something looking like scrapple. Yes, people actually put this in their mouths. Like North Carolina's livermush, it's meat cake (meat log? Meat brick?) made with parts of animals that normally get sold to the glue or dog food factories. A Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy mush, it's pork scraps and trimmings mixed with buckwheat, flour, cornmeal, and spices. You can chop it straight from a loaf and eat it solo or fry up a slice and stick it between some Wonder Bread. But should you? A scrapple a day keeps the doctor away. But that's just incidental, it also keeps everyone else in the world away. Because you smell like scrapple, man.
Last night my friends and family unanimously decided that if I were a food it would be scrapple from a Philly food truck
— Rainbow Fish (@ThRealSlimBrady) January 22, 2017
If you don't fw scrapple I can't fw you😶
— glucose guardian♨️ (@ItzCrae) January 22, 2017
My urban fantasy set in Philly will contain the word 'jawn' and one of my characters will eat scrapple. Because authenticity. #amwriting
— Chris Morse (@SuperCorner) January 1, 2017
Yeah, but we've embraced the breakfast food here.
Dogfish Head Brewery – based in Milton, Delaware – brews a stout called "Beer for Breakfast" that's made with actual scrapple. South Philly's Triangle Tavern even makes a popular vegan version of the breakfast food.
Unfortunately, Thrillist had a few more favorable words for pork roll.
"The first time you bite into a pork roll, egg, and cheese (PRE&C, SPK), it feels [like] the Boss himself just struck a power chord on your freakin' taste buds," the list reads. "You see, it only looks like Chris Christie. It plays like Springsteen."
While the region's picks may be strange, they can't be that strange, with sturgeon eggs as Idaho's weirdest food and a brain sandwich as Indiana's.
View the website's complete list here.
