Doubtless some readers will have been puzzled yesterday by my use of scrapple as a model of purity. But, you know, there is scrapple, and then there is scrapple. There’s country scrapple and city scrapple, as the distinction used to be drawn, back when country people, or at least country butchers, still made their own. There was country panhaas, made by Pennsylvania Germans, and there was its bastard cousin Philadelphia scrapple.
Pink slime: Or, the whole scrapple
My main thought on all this horror over “pink slime” is that it doesn’t sound any worse than any food-like product I’d expect to come out of a factory. I mean, what do you expect? The goal of the U.S. food industry is to produce substances that are chemically compatible with the maintenance of human life and that are aesthetically and culturally palatable to American consumers, all at the greatest possible margin of profit. Pink slime, duly flavored with extracts, shaped into a patty, topped with half the contents of the refrigerator and eaten by a model with juice dribbling down her chin, pretty much nails it.
But I get tired of reading only people I agree with, so I went looking for contrary arguments.