So You Want to Cook a Founding Father

History is gross. The Founding Fathers were grosser.

I grew up in a certain commonwealth with the slogan: "You've got a friend in Pennsylvania." But in PA, we might be boiling up our friends and fam. Pennsylvania People Porridge is a delicacy here! We even grew up with real chopped up bits of Quakers in our oatmeal.

This is the story of General "Mad" Anthony Wayne, the Revolutionary War hero. When most people die, they get a tombstone. General Wayne got a warm bath, a leaky crate, a wild-ass statewide tour, and two tombstones.

The year was 1809. It was 13 years after Mad General Wayne died. Isaac Wayne, his son, arrives in Erie to pick up daddy’s bones, only to find that the general wasn’t just bones at all: he was suspiciously moist and meaty, having been slow-roasting in his coffin for the last thirteen years.

Enter Dr. C. W. Wallace, a physician whose job wasn't processing the dead, but he had to do mortician duty. Yet our intrepid surgeon had a gleam in his eye, like a chef eyeing a ripe cut of meat. And The Mad General was ripe af!

The doctor kept trying to Tetris this goopy soupy corpse into the cart before finally realizing the same thing your mom said to me in bed last night: it’s too big to fit.

Thus, Dr. Wallace explained corpse had to be "reduced." He called his staff together and explained: “Imma have to stew this bitch.” Dr. Wallace had the kitchen fire up their hottest burners and rolled up his sleeves.

And so began Pennsylvania's most cursed mess hall cook-off. A massive cauldron was procured, filled with Lake Erie’s finest. They crammed Daddy Wayne into the bubbling broth with his whole-ass fetid funeral uniform (or fune-i-form, as I like to call it!), shoes and all.

The stench of boiling rotten flesh filled the air. Chunks of the Mad General’s anatomy sloughed off, bobbing to the surface like hell-spawned matzo balls in a putrescent cadaver spumoni. Imagine a frothy, pinkish-grey concoction, flecked with bits of boiled cartilage and rendered fat. War medals, buttons, tooth fillings, and the patriotic stench of battle added extra umami and texture. Truly, ‘twas a dish best served never.

And after the soup was cooled and strained, it was bone voyage time! Isaac, now the proud owner of a trunk filled with his collection of every dad skeleton he owned, started the long trip from the military grave in Erie to his house in Philadelphia. You’d think the military would have better equipment, but readers, this trunk was junk! It had gaps and holes through which Mad Daddy’s corpse juice be dripping his meaty moisture all across the state. But it also malfunctioned, popping open and yeeting the poor guy’s bod bits all over the picturesque Piedmont region. The result was a trail of femurs, kneecaps, and other assorted corpse-soup ingredients resting for eternity on the pa turnpike!

By the time Master Wayne got home, he had some of a general, and 100% of a crazy-ass road trip story.

The bones that survived the journey were buried with honor at the Wayne family mansion near Philadelphia. The leftover broth meat, uniform scraps, and ghostly Daddy Wayne soup scum stayed back in Erie and was buried (or I should say re-buried) there. Rumor has it if you pass mile marker 135 near Altoona and whisper "Pepe Silvia" into the breeze, you'll hear the general whisper back: "He doesn't exist."

Travel guide for where to see which parts:

* Head and spine -- Philly.

* Corpse-brine-scented socks in socks-scented corpse brine -- Erie.

* Ass bone -- idk, prob somewhere off Route 322 at a nearby Sheetz.

Bonus recipe for Keystone State Boiled Dinner! Warning: DO NOT cook this (unless you’re cursed, or live in Ohio).

Ingredients:

1 Revolutionary War general (look for moist meaty ones where the flesh has been dry-aged in a cave.)

1 big-ass mess hall cauldron

10 gallons of Erie water (all that stuff floating in there gives it that down-home flav that Pennsylvanians crave!)

A sprig of thyme (cuz we deserve at least one nice thing)

An entire whole-ass uniform

A dash of constitutional rot (it’s abundant in 2025)


Directions:

1. Unbox your general. If he still has skin, huzzah -- you’re in for an extra flavorful batch.

2. Do not remove clothes. Fabric adds mouthfeel.

3. Place general into cauldron. Bring to a rolling boil. Boil over hard. Never look him in the eye. He likes it.

4. Reserve the corpse fat for frying your leftover breakfast socks the next morning.

5. Simmer 69-420 hours, or until your dinner guests order pizza, then eat it in the car on the way home.

6. Strain the bones and bury them 300 miles southeast.

7. To serve: pour into a 6-foot grave. Serves one whole-ass military base.

Serve side dishes like fluted champagne bowls of Heinz ketchup, shoo-fly pie, or even some scrapple if ya nasty.


This dish pairs nicely with:

A nice Chianti (of course)

Rye whiskey drunk out of a tricorn hat

A lukewarm Iron City beer from your great-grandparents’ basement.

Here’s what we know about the Mad General. He was cool peeps. He knew life’s secrets: live mad, die weird, aaaaand maybe tell your kids not to dig you up after 13 years. Rude. 🩸

The general’s son, Isaac, changed his first name to Bruce and was last quoted as saying,

“This is why I’m Batman. To stop this from happening to other people’s dads.”