Sandwich Wednesday: The Royal Farms Scrapple Sandwich

Sometimes I’ll listen to NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. Until a few months ago, Wait, Wait had a blog called “Sandwich Monday” where one of the interns would go in Chicago, buy a sandwich of some description, maybe fast food, maybe something local, and the team would eat it, photographing the sandwich and their reactions, documenting the whole thing.

It was usually pretty funny.

There’s a sandwich that calls out for the “Sandwich Monday” treatment, and if the Wait, Wait team isn’t here to do it, then I will!

Now, I’m a fan of scrapple. I don’t want to think about what’s in it. All I care about is that I like it. I like how it tastes. I like eating it.

When I needed gas for the Beetle a few days ago, I stopped at Royal Farms and ordered one of their Scrapple Breakfast sandwiches. I had to see for myself what that was like. And here’s how that turned out…

This morning, I needed to gas up the Beetle again, and I stopped once more at Royal Farms. I decided to give them another shot…

And they had scrapple! They could make the sandwich!

I ordered the sandwich, went into the office, and unwrapped it…

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It looks vaguely like an Egg McMuffin.

Now, there were several different ways I could have ordered it. I could have ordered it on a biscuit. I could have ordered it on a bagel. I could have ordered it with egg whites. I could have ordered it with different cheeses. Heck, I could even have tricked it out with all sorts of vegetables and sauces.

I decided to keep it basic — an English muffin, the scrapple, egg, and American cheese.

Think of it, then, as an Egg McMuffin with scrapple instead of Canadian bacon. 🙂

Let’s take it apart.

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The scrapple is rather dark, isn’t it? I like my scrapple a little more gray, and it definitely needs to be crumbly. This scrapple seemed… well, it seemed a little sturdy.

I was ready to take a bite.

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My reaction?

The first thing I noticed was how salty the scrapple was. I mean, really salty. Like it had been marinated in brine and then salted for good measure, that’s how salty it was. Like “there’s a little water in my salt” salty.

Then as I chewed, I noticed how dry the scrapple was. Like, really dry. It wasn’t moist at all, and because it wasn’t moist it wasn’t at all crumbly. It was like they had grilled the scrapple until it was an ember and then slapped it on the muffin. It was so dry it had the consistency of sausage.

Verdict? The Royal Farms Scrapple Breakfast Sandwich, at least in my configuration, was pretty disappointing. It wasn’t enjoyable. The point of scrapple had been utterly missed.

I’d say there’s a 100% chance that I won’t try another. As a curiosity, it was worth trying once. But they really need to fix the scrapple for the sandwich to be worthwhile.

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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