I was introduced to scrapple by my wife Disty when we first met in 1970. She was raised in Philadelphia, and her father, a member of the Fish House, a prestigious men's cooking club, was particularly partial to and accomplished at cooking and eating scrapple. Disty grew up with this breakfast meat, which her father, Stan, used to say "was made from the sweepings off the pig butcher's floor." Sounds very unappetizing, but for those of us who enjoy breakfast meats, there is nothing quite like it. And in Stan's amazing kitchen and by his hands, it became one of the sinful pleasures of our family and the holy grail of our own nuclear kitchen.

My first taste of scrapple was not from Stan's iron pan, but from Disty's. Stan sent Disty a can of it from Philadelphia to our college in Colorado. Later, when Disty spent a year in Taiwan, Stan sent a can to her there. Disty made me some of the scrapple at college from the can, and it was good, but I didn't fall in love with the stuff until I had a chance to meet her dad a few years later at his home in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, and eat one of his breakfasts.

Over the 30 years since, while he was alive, I would study his preparation, hoping that someday I would be able to prepare the scrapple, the accompanying scrambled eggs that my children simply called "Pop Pops eggs," and the orange juice of still unknow origin that comprised his host breakfast feasts. We were there every Christmas and Easter, every other Thanksgiving, weddings, funerals, the occasional non-occasion visit and other family events. Our children grew up with his holiday breakfasts. Usually Stan would have been up earlier and have prepared everything, but when I could, I would catch him in his little galley kitchen and try to ask probing questions. He was so fastidious in the preparation, and that in itself marked a huge divide between me and reproducing the recipes. They were the simplest of ingredients: prepared scrapple (Park brand), eggs, cream, butter, orange juice from a container. But in his hands they became irreproducible, transcendent, and highly-prized. Stan died in 2004, but by 1998 he had pretty much hung up his fry pan, and we were left to try our hands.

He had techniques which since then Disty and I have both mastered to some extent, but our memory of them always inserts some quirk of our own that is destined to slightly alter the result. For the scrapple: first you lightly grease the 9" iron fry pan with canola oil, heat the pan on high, then lower it to medium, lay the 1/2" sliced scrapple in the pan and let it cook until the slices freely slides in the pan. Impatience for this delicacy always defeated me. Move it, bother it, and it falls apart. When free from the bottom of the pan, turn the square slices over and let them cook until crispy. For the eggs: Crack 1/2 dozen eggs and put them in a mixing bowl. Add 1/2 cup of cream and mix eggs and cream with a wire wisk. Add a good amount of pepper and a pinch of salt. Mix. Heat an iron pan on high, then reduce heat to medium. Put 2 tablespoons of butter in the pan and allow to melt. Pour egg mixture into pan and immediately begin scraping the bottom with a spatula. Allow it cook until the eggs are still moist and runny. Serve eggs and scrapple, along with orange juice.

There is nothing special about the recipe, but in its execution is the difference between goodness and greatness, a passing moment and a spiritual one, and between mere toleration and profound love.

This past Christmas morning, Disty and I and our grown sons Andy and Chip all sat down to our traditional Pop Pop breakfast. Disty made the scrapple and I made the scrambled eggs. As always, something was missing, but the scrapple was truly out of this world.