- scrapple
Commentary:- There has been more surmise and discussion about the origin of this word than about that of any other word in the dialect. One popular explanation is that the early English settlers in and around Philadelphia made a dish resembling scrapple with the meat of rabbits as a basis, and that they called this dish pan rabbit; that subsequently the German settlers substituted pork for rabbit in making the dish and by way of giving it a name made a literal translation of panrabbit into Pannhaas. The New Standard Dictionary alone of modern English dictionaries contains the word pan rabbit, but it gives it as an equivalent for "panhas" and derives the English word from the German word. The late Dr. D. W. Nead in The Pennsylvania German in the Settlement of Maryland, p. 75 in Volume XXII Proc. Penna. Ger. Sec., says: “In preparing the latter (Leberwurst) the liver and kidneys, with the tenderloin and some of the head-meat, was put into a large iron kettle and boiled until it was thoroughly cooked. It was then transferred to the block and chopped fine and stuffed into skins, like the sausage, or packed in crocks and sealed with a layer of fat. The water in which the meat had been boiled was used to prepare what was commonly called Pon-hoss (Pfannhase), that is, Pan-rabbit. A great many fantastic explanations have been given of the derivation of this term, but it is simply one of the humorous names similar to Welsh-rabbit, for a mixture made from cheese, or Leicestershire plover, for a bag-pudding. Pon-hoss was made by using the water in which the pudding-meat had been boiled for making a corn-meal mush. This was put into pans to harden and was then cut into thin slices and fried. Sometimes a mixture of corn-meal and wheat flour, or buckwheat flour was used. A somewhat similar mixture is made now a days in the larger cities, particularly Philadelphia, and is known as scrapple, but it is not the Pon-hoss of the early Germans." He adds in a footnote a quotation from the Philadelphia Public Ledger of January 16, 1913: "A University of Pennsylvania professor, whose home is in Vienna, informed M.A. Lambert that nowhere on the continent of Europe did he ever eat anything like scrapple. He was quite certain that it is of American origin. Nor can he, excellent scholar in five languages as he was, and whose mother tongue was German, explain just whence the name ponhaus.
- The early Pennsylvania Germans undoubtedly originated the dish Pannhaas. The urge back of the invention was the desire not to waste the nutriment contained in the liquor in which the meat had been boiled. As a liquid it could not be used, so the natural thing to do was to thicken it with flour. But in the early day the only flour available was cornmeal, hence that was used. When better milling processes came, buckwheat flour was obtained and that was used. At the present time the proportion of buckwheat flour used in making scrapple is much larger than the proportion of cornmeal. The dish is not known in German cookery. But, although the early Pennsylvania Germans originated the dish, they did not originate the name. They brought that with them from Germany. Professor Gustav Herbig, of Munich, Germany, a native of the Palatinate, informed M.A. Lambert that "pănhās" is a Rhenish-Palatinate word in use for any substitute (Ersatz), frequently consisting of scraps or leftovers chopped fine, prepared in a pan like roast hare. The usual term for such a dish is "falscher Hase." In Düsseldorf the term "pănhās" is used for "Buchweizen in Schinkenbrühe gekocht." Synonyms for the word, evidently humorous, are "gebratene Katze" and (in Pirmasens) "Dachhase" (=Katze).
