Philly’s Scrapple Sculpting Contest was won by a Delco tattooer who carved the Tush Push

Scrappy sculptors slivered away at slabs of solidified swine parts in search of aesthetic excellence and gastronomical glory at Reading Terminal Market’s second annual Scrapple Sculpting Contest Friday.

The spectacle was sow strange that some perplexed passersby stopped to gawk and ponder the nature of art, pork, and Pennsylvania culinary culture.

Judging the contest was Sasha Suda, director and CEO of the Philadelphia Art Museum, who had the difficult job of choosing the Michelangelo of minced meat, the Rodin of repurposed pork. Suda, who’s “absolutely enjoyed scrapple” before, said judging the competition was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“There is no question that Philadelphia is home to one of the great culinary scenes in the world and has some of the great art museums in the world, so this is a chance for these two worlds to collide, and what better medium to use than scrapple,” she said.

After a tough competition, Suda crowned Patrick Moser champion for his version of the Eagles’ Tush Push, which he called the “Mush Push.” Suda said Moser’s sculpture was advanced, ambitious, and pushed scrapple “to its absolute limits.”

Moser — a Delco tattoo artist who has a large spiderweb inked over the top of his head — was shocked.

“I did not expect to win such a prestigious competition. I’ve never sculpted anything before and I’ve never sculpted anything, obviously, out of scrapple either,” he said. “But it’s the Eagles. You can’t go wrong with the Eagles … it’s a little lowbrow, a little highbrow — Caravaggio meets Sirianni, a bunch of bodies and a bunch of meat.”

Moser was awarded a pig trophy named “Scrappy” and a $100 Reading Terminal Market gift card.

Philly food and drink writer Amy Strauss, author of the book Pennsylvania Scrapple: A Delectable History, emceed the event.

“I once heard scrapple is a metaphor for Philly,” she said. “A little mysterious, a little down-home, and a little gritty, but it always brings so much delight to folks.”

The 12 contestants had 90 minutes to chisel away at five-pound blocks of scrapple, the taupe-colored traditional Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast dish made of pig scraps, cornmeal, buckwheat, and spices formed into a congealed loaf.

When it’s sliced and pan-fried, scrapple has a distinctive smell, but the contestants’ sculpting scrapple was chilled and uncooked, so their porcine pieces were odorless.

The sculptors came from as far away as Pittsburgh to participate in the competition, and the group included a high school student playing hooky (with her dad’s permission), an artist with an MFA in sculpture, an engineer, and a former ice carver.

The contestants carefully carved impressive sculptures of a Gritty head, three Liberty Bells, Saquon Barkley’s backward hurdle, an apple vessel with a removable top that hid a tiny pig inside, a fish coming out of a cowboy boot, and a chef cooking up three little piggies.

Two contestants seemed to play directly to Suda with their pieces. Christianne Kapps recreated Constantin Brancusi’s sculpture The Kiss, which is housed at the Art Museum, and Evan Jeffries made the Art Museum itself, complete with a tiny Rocky statue at the base and three food trucks illegally parked out front.

“This will be good resume padding,” Jeffries said. “I’m going to list it as my top skill.”

Locals, tourists, and servicemen and women in uniform in town for the Navy and Marines’ 250th anniversary celebrations stopped to watch the artists at work and wondered about their medium.

Some guessed it was tofu, others thought it was kinetic sand, and some only learned of the definition and existence of scrapple for the first time that day.

Bill and Cookie Perry, who were visiting from Vancouver, found out about the contest online and came to the market to see what it was all about. Bill Perry, a Maryland native, was familiar with scrapple, but his wife, who hails from California, was not until Friday.

“It doesn’t even look appealing,” Cookie Perry said. “I would never eat it — and I’m a Spam eater!”

The contest was a precursor to the market’s second annual Scrapple and Apple Festival, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. At the festival vendors will serve a variety of traditional and unusual dishes, including scrapple tater tots, scrapple hush puppies, scrapple apple danishes, chocolate chip scrapple cookies, and even scrapple sundaes.

Following Friday’s contest, the sculptures were moved to an undisclosed, refrigerated location for storage until Saturday, when they’ll be displayed again during the festival for a second round of judging by popular vote. Then the ephemeral sculptures will be composted.