Bring the chicken broth to a boil; add chopped onion and peppercorns. Add chicken and cook until the meat falls off the bones (about 1 hour).
Strain the cooked chicken out of the broth and save the broth. Remove the bones and inedible parts from the cooked chicken, then chop or grind the cooked meat into fine pieces. Be careful if you use a food processor, so that you don't puree the meat.
Simmer the chicken broth in a large pan. Mix cornmeal, flour, salt, thyme, sage and cayenne with about 1 cup of cold water. Stir well. Now slowly stir this mixture into the simmering broth.
Add the cooked, ground chicken to the simmering pot. Simmer and stir for about 5 minutes. Pour hot mixture into well-greased loaf pans. Chill until firm. To serve: remove from pan, cut into slices, roll in flour or cornmeal, and fry in a greased frying pan.
NOTES: * Eastern-style scrapple (a breakfast food like sausage) -I grew up in Maryland, and in Maryland people eat scrapple for breakfast. Among my schoolmates, the story was that if you ever found out what was in commercial scrapple you would stop eating it, and I did stop eating it for many years. But now I know how to make my own. I got this recipe from the University of Maryland poultry farming people, though I have added more seasonings because * Vary the amount of salt in this recipe to suit your taste. You can make scrapple out of almost any meat, though chicken and pork are traditional. For a different, and truly authentic Maryland taste, leave out the salt and cayenne and substitute about 2 t of Old Bay seasoning.
* A loaf of home-made scrapple will keep for 10 days in the refrigerator, or it can be cut into slices and frozen.
: Difficulty: easy. : Time: 1 hour preparation and cooking, several hours cooling, 5 minutes to fry. : Precision: no need to measure; approximate measurement OK.