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Philip Spiess
As a farewell to 2019 (good riddance!), and a welcome to 2020 (thank god -- we hope!), I return to a subject that temporarily intrigued us at Posts #4252, #4253, #4260, and #4272, namely CINCINNATI GOETTA (a.k.a. Scrapple, Panhas, etc.). Herewith, from me to all of you as a present for the holidays, is a "history in a nutshell" of one of Cincinnati's historic, and still major, foodstuffs:
GOETTA (Definition and Use): Known as a high-energy breakfast food of the German immigrants, it is usually defined by its ingredients: a combination of pork scraps, beef scraps, pinhead oats, onions, and one or two spice blends (more of which later). It looks like sausage and has a consistency similar to meatloaf, but it's not dense enough to be either. For immigrants and poor farmers, it was an economical food, meant to extend the leftover scraps of expensive meat, such as pork and beef, as well as utilizing the lesser cuts of pork organ meats and head meat (ingredients not usually used today); further, it extended the shelf life of such meat before the days of regular refrigeration.
History: The early history of food products which evolved into what we now know as Goetta is (loosely) as follows: In antiquity (and still today in Yorkshire, Scotland, Ireland, and elsewhere), there was blood pudding, then a meat-and grain-based gruel (nowadays much more of a sausage); this evolved into forms such as the Scottish haggis (a sheep's internal organs, sheep's blood, and oats, often laced with Scotch whisky) and the German Saumagen ("sow's stomach"). This, in turn, became a major food product -- Gruetzwurst (grain sausage) -- of which there were many variants and descendants, one of which was Panhas (pork scraps, pork blood, and pearl barley in the south of Germany, or buckwheat in the north of Germany). Through many other variants, called by many other names, in the American regions settled by German immigrants there emerged Scrapple (pork scraps and cornmeal, in the Mid-Atlantic states) and Livermush (pork scraps, pork liver, cornmeal and/or rice). The term "Gruetze" (see above) transmogrified in the South into "Grits" (made of hominy corn), and in the Amish country of the Pennsylvania Dutch and westward into the Ohio country of Cincinnati into Goetta (pork and/or beef scraps and pinhead oats). Much more recent developments include Oatmeal Sausage (goetta with a lower percentage of meat) and Grotta (cornmeal and oats -- in other words, a vegan Goetta); all of these are of a Cincinnati origin.
Evolution in Cincinnati: Brought to Cincinnati by north German immigrants from Westphalia, North Saxony, Hanover, and Mecklenburg in the late 1840s, after the European revolutions of 1848 and 1849, Goetta quickly melded with Cincinnati's (i.e., "Porkopolis"'s) pork-packing industry, as there was always an inexpensive supply of pork in the city (this was due to the availability of Midwestern corn which fed the hogs -- and which was also the basis for Cincinnati's whiskey industry -- see the earlier Posts on bootlegger George Remus). As a result, Cincinnati's Goetta evolved into less of a slaughter-house sausage and more into a quality meat grain sausage (see above).
Traditions: The goetta eaten in early Cincinnati in the 1850s (say, by the immigrants in the "Over-the-Rhine" district) was not the same as is served in the city today: the early forms were much more like porridge than slices of a terrine. Individual family recipes for goetta (if it's still made within families) are distinguished by the chosen spice blends, given that there are two distinct schools of thought on this subject: (1) the more standard (north German) is a spice blend: pepper, cloves, allspice, and bay leaf; and (2) the more herb-flavored (south German) blend: sage, rosemary, marjoram, summer savory, bay leaf, or combinations thereof. There is also the distinction of cooking method: should it be prepared "crispy" or should it be prepared "mushy"? And then, how should it be served? Should it be with catsup, or syrup, or grape jelly?
Goetta in Cincinnati Today: I am told that there are currently more than 100 restaurants that serve goetta in Cincinnati, including -- a Goetta Reuben; a Goetta "Hanky Panky" Appetizer; Goetta Pizzas; Goetta Cheese Coneys; Deep-Fried Goetta Balls; Goetta Eggs Benedict; Goetta Hot Browns; Goetta Corn Dogs; Goetta Nachos; and a Goetta Apricot Danish. AND -- there are not one, but two, Goettafests held yearly in Cincinnati. Go figure.
I myself like my Goetta crispy (well fried) and I probably like the more herb-flavored variety (though I have neve tried the two types together to compare); although I imagine the Pennsylvania Dutch prefer theirs served with syrup, I like mine plain. And I definitely like it at breakfast -- letting the yolk of a fried egg run over the goetta (called Scrapple in Delaware -- and in my local Virginia grocery) before eating it (washed down with black coffee) is what I remember from my diner breakfast days before class in graduate school at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware (1968-1970).
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