Despite living for most of my adult life in and around Philadelphia, I somehow managed to avoid direct personal contact with scrapple, a food that, like the cheesesteak and soft pretzel, is strongly associated with the region. (Right now I feel I ought to advise you that you may want to think twice about clicking that scrapple link. Like sausage, law and perhaps also reality television, some feel it best to remain ignorant of scrapple's makings.) It's not that I had what you'd call a strong position on scrapple, just it always seemed like the kind of thing that I was probably better off avoiding if possible. Which it was.

But earlier this year we invested in a stand-alone freezer and accessorized it with shares in both a steer and a pig. The pig arrived with several packs of organic, hormone-free, free-range scrapple. Brainiac and I both felt tested by its presence at our house and resolved that it would not be wasted. Yesterday morning we acted on our resolve and I sliced and fried (in a well-seasoned cast iron pan) the very first scrapple of my life.

No one could be more surprised than I to discover that scrapple is actually quite good. Properly prepared, scrapple has a texture somewhat akin to polenta* - browned and crispy on the outside, meltingly tender on the inside. It is earthy, meaty and very, very rich - as befits a dish made with bits of the pig that I ordinarily pass with only so much as a shudder. I couldn't eat more than two small slices, but Brainiac and the Boy Wonder both managed to pack away more.

I'm chalking this up to a growth experience. While I am no longer afraid of scrapple and will certainly enjoy the remainder currently in my possession I can't imagine a time when I'll seek it out. Still, I am pleased to be in the scrapple-eating side in a world that is highly unevenly divided between Those Who Will and Those Who Won't. I am a girl who will.

* One of the ingredients in scrapple is cornmeal, which serves as a kind of mortor for all the bits and pieces of other stuff. When I described the texture of scrapple as polenta-like I had a giggle, because in my grocery I can buy "polenta" for something north of $3.00 a pound whereas cornmeal mush - the exact same thing, but for being a slightly finer grind - is more like $1.50.