The Scrapple Festival You Probably Didn't Know About
First celebrated in 1992, the Apple Scrapple Festival in Bridgeville, Delaware celebrates two of the area's beloved, rhyming commodities. According to the festival's website, the first, like its name suggests, is apples, and not just any apples, but ones grown by the oldest apple grower in the state, T.S. Smith and Sons Farm.
The second commodity worthy of celebration? Scrapple! If you're scratching your head, chances are you're not from the Mid-Atlantic where scrapple is a well-known breakfast side. According to The Daily Meal, it is usually made from pork meat and offal, including pig parts like the head, heart, and liver. To make the scrapple, the pork potpourri is boiled, minced, combined with cornmeal, flour, and spices, and formed into loaves. From there, it's sliced and pan-fried much like Spam.
The "World's Largest Producer of Scrapple," RAPA Scrapple calls Bridgeville home, and when one town can lay claim to both apples and scrapple, it calls for double the celebration!
What goes on at the Scrapple Apple Festival?
After canceling the festival in 2020 due to COVID-19, the Apple Scrapple Committee (who else?) voted to proceed with planning the popular festival in 2021 for the second full weekend of October following tradition (via the festival website). Which was good news for festival-goers, because Bridgeville's Scrapple Apple Festival is the social event of the season! According to Thrillist, the event draws in more than 25,000 attendees every year.
If festivities are anything like the past, festival-goers can expect a family-friendly carnival with rides and games. There have also been street dances (honestly, we'll take any excuse to dance in the street), as well as car, trade, and craft shows. Most importantly, there are sure to be food vendors selling a variety of tasty fare, like apple dumplings and scrapple sandwiches.
According to the Apple Scrapple Facebook page, there have also been some tough competitions in past years, including an apple baking contest, a scrapple recipe contest, a Little Miss Apple Scrapple (say that three times fast) Pageant, a ladies skillet toss (there were two age groups, in case you were considering competing: 18-40 and 40 and older), a kids apple toss, and — wait for it — a "Scrapple Chunkin' Contest." We're pretty sure watching a good ol' scrapple chunk is worth the trip all by itself.