The Legend Of That Poor Mr. Grohl

The Legend Of That Poor Mr. Grohl

Pineland’s Tales

By Paul Pedersen, Jr

For as long as anyone can remember, pork roll and scrapple have been the breakfast meats of choice for folks in the Pine Barrens. And it’s all thanks to a waylaid German sausage maker named Gunter Grohl, and his pet coyote, Fetzen.

Gunter, barely twenty-two years old and built like a blond, blue-eyed wrestler, immigrated from Germany in January of 1758 with plans to start a sausage making operation in Philadelphia. But as the ship he was aboard approached the Delaware River, the Captain and crew realized that trying to reach Philadelphia was impossible, as the ice in the river made further navigation futile. Instead, they headed north, up the coast of NJ, to Newark. Gunter would have to find his way back south to Philadelphia somehow.

After arriving in Newark, he purchased a small wagon that he could pull, and some provisions for the trip, including a sheet of canvas for a tent, a rifle and some ammunition for hunting and protection, and the best map he could find. He neatly packed everything that he owned, including recipes and his prized spice pouches for his sausages, and the things he’d just purchased into the wagon, and began his journey on foot through the wild, unknown Pinelands, southwest to Philadelphia.

About twenty days into the journey, just outside of a little town known as Iron Forge (now Chatsworth), as he was starting his fire and setting up his canvas tent, getting ready to bed down for another cold, black night in the Pines, he saw a coyote that was holding something in it’s mouth watching him. Unafraid, he called and motioned to the coyote, “Come to me. Come to me. I will not harm you, little friend, come here, please.”

Amazingly, the coyote trusted Gunter, and slowly and cautiously, approached Gunter, who was now sitting on the back of his wagon. He saw that the coyote had a piece of deer meat in his jaws, which he dropped at Gunter’s feet.

“For me?” Gunter laughed. “Is that a gift for me? Ahhh, thank you!”

Gunter reached down and patted the coyote’s head. They’d become friends instantly.

“Now, go get me some more scraps of meat”, Gunter half-heartedly commanded. “and, I shall call you Fetzen from now on.”

Dutifully, to Gunter’s surprise, Fetzen came back again and again with ripped scraps of meats from the forest. Some deer, some rabbit. Some that were a mystery. Before long, they had quite a collection of meats.

“We shall wrap these meats in a piece of canvas I will fashion like a long sock, and smoke them over the fire here”, Gunter told Fetzen. “What we don’t wrap, we shall boil and store in a hole you and I will dig to keep it all cooled down over night”.

The process worked perfectly. Gunter would cut and sew strips of canvas into a long tube with one end sewn shut, stuff it tightly with finely-minced scraps of meat, sew it closed, and hang it over his fire, smoking and preserving the meats for later use. What he didn’t stuff into the canvas, he boiled down into a thick, porridge-like consistency, covered the pot, and buried it in a hole he and Fetzen would dig over night. The next morning, it was congealed and solid, and easily sliced and fried.

Gunter and Fetzen took some of their meat products into the little town and began selling it to the folks that lived there. Everyone loved these new meat delicacies that had never been seen or tasted before. They invited Gunter and Fetzen to stay in Iron Forge and become friends and neighbors, though they felt sorry that Gunter could speak no English, and they had a hard time communicating with him. They started referring to him as “that poor Mr. Grohl”

Gunter decided  it would suit him to stay in Iron Forge instead of continuing to Philadelphia. He built a cabin, and set up a more elaborate shop than he had out in the wilds. As more and more people bought and enjoyed his products, his operation grew and grew. He and Fetzen became loved and revered far and wide in and around Iron Forge, and it was many a customer, for years and years, that traveled great distances to get their  meat from “Poor Grohl”, either wrapped in the canvas, or that which was made in the scrap hole.

To this very day, folks still enjoy pork roll (Poor Grohl) and/or scrapple (scrap hole) for breakfast in the Pines.