The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1908-02-13
EXCUsELEss IGNORANCE.

Our very able and intelligent contem-
porary, the Grocery World, simply
throws a fit over the article in The Ma
tional Tribune in relation to Pennsyl-
yania scrapple. 1t reproduces the edi-
torial in full and says:
THE National Tribune, of Washing
ton, d. C.,ttakes its place in the gallery
of immortal ignoramuses this week thru
some remarks which it makes upon
Pennsylvania scrapple. The subject was
an article, on The Story of a Mail
Order Scrapple Business which recent
ly appeared in the Grocery World The
the fact that one of the best things on
earth it seems to have missed, sourly
muses. as follows:
There would perhaps be some ex-
cuse for an Alaskan being ignorant of
Pennsylvania scrapp1e, but for a resi-
dent of the District of Columbia, Real
ly, it is almost Incredible! The Grocery
World. after due consideration. cannot
bring Itself to believe that The National
Pennsylvania serapple. What he is
probably endeayoring to do is to egg on
some credulOus Pennsylvania into
sending him a pound"
Humiliating as it may seem, we have
to plead guilty to about every count in
the Grocery Worlds Indictment The
editor of The National Tribune has. in
the course of somewhat eventful life,
been made acquainted with about every
thing that was good to eat in this coun-
try and gobs and heaps of what wasn't.
AS boy with consuming appetite and
little money he went thru the vegetarian
spasm that swept the northern part of
the country just prior to the war, when
he tried to live on the clammy, soggy
Graham bread and the whole repertory
of tasteless, yapid compounds which the
health reformers Of those days palmed
off upon the patient public as health
foods He even went with the radicals
among the yegetarians who eschewed
salt as unwholesome, and he made
meals off unsalted potatoes and squash.
He was compelled to say, like the Bona
parte Prince who had one of our ma
tive birds served up to him, Il can eat
re turkey buzzard. but he eez not good. I"
During the war the editor in his Off
cial capacity of a high private in the
rear rank, went thru the Kaleidoscope
variety which made up a soldiers fare
during the dark days of the rebellion
He has eaten, and been mighty glad to
get it, corn pone and sidemeat in Ar
kansas and Tennessee, turtles and cat
fish In Mississippi, lye hominy in east
ern Kentucky, mush and sorghum in
Georgia, and for a year and three
months lived, or at least continued to
exist, on the coarse cornbread of An
dersonville. Florence and other prisons
The main trouble with him then was
not the kind OF quality of food, but to
get enough, Of it,. Somehow, in all these
varied experiences he never came across
Pennsylvania serapple. The Yankee
boys who came down to us with the
Ninth Corps taught us how to bake
pork and beans in the most artistic
way; the Kentucky and Tennessee boys
taught us what good things could be
made with ecornmeal, and SO on. with
a man from each State making some
addition and improvement to our cult
nary knowledge.
Somehow tho, the splendid Pennsyl-
vania boys never said a word about
scrapple; they never had any Of it
around in camp. and certainly never
gave any Of us q sample of the tooth
some food. This seems strange, and
throws strong doubt upon the univer-
salty of the Pennsylvania love for
scrapple, because the boys from that
State were generous fellows, and il
| they had anything particularly good
their first impulse would be to share
with those who were ignorant of the
delicacy. Therefore. we mildly hut
firmly protest to the Grocery World
that the scrapple habit could not have
been general during the wartimes, or
We, should have heard something Of It
from the Pennsylvania boys