The roots of the culinary traditions that led to the development of scrapple in America have been traced back to pre-Roman Europe.
[10] The more immediate culinary ancestor of scrapple was the
Low German dish called
panhas, which was adapted to make use of locally available ingredients, and it is still called "Pannhaas", "panhoss", "ponhoss", or "pannhas" in parts of Pennsylvania.
[11] The first recipes were created by German colonists who settled near
Philadelphia and
Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the 17th and 18th centuries.
[12] As a result, scrapple is strongly associated with areas surrounding Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, D.C.; Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Southern New York, and the
Delmarva Peninsula. Its popularity on the Delmarva Peninsula is celebrated the second weekend of October during the annual "
Apple Scrapple Festival" in
Bridgeville, Delaware.
The two largest brands of scrapple in Philadelphia are
Habbersett and Rapa, controlling approximately half and one-quarter of the market, respectively. Rapa accounts for about three-quarters of the Baltimore market.
[13][14] The title of jazz artist Charlie Parker's 1947 composition "
Scrapple from the Apple" is inspired by the food scrapple, in the Big Apple (New York City).