Goetta ( ) is a meat-and-grain

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs, may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

or mush of German inspiration that is popular in Metro Cincinnati. It is primarily composed of

ground meat Ground meat, called mince or minced meat outside North America, is meat finely chopped by a meat grinder or a chopping knife. A common type of ground meat is ground beef, but many other types of meats are prepared in a similar fashion, incl ...

(pork, or sausage and beef), steel-cut oats and spices. It was originally a dish meant to stretch out servings of meat over several meals to conserve money, and is a similar dish to scrapple and

livermush Livermush is a Southern United States pork food product prepared using pig liver, parts of pig heads, cornmeal and spices. It is a regional cuisine, regional dish that is common in Western North Carolina. It is typically consumed as a breakfast an ...

, both also developed by German immigrants.

Origins and popularity

The dish probably originated with German settlers from the northwestern regions of Oldenburg,

Hannover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

, and

Westphalia Westphalia (; ; ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the region is almost identical with the h ...

who emigrated to the Cincinnati area in the 19th century. The word goetta comes from the

Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...

word Götte, meaning groats or coarse grains (or a food made from them). In and around Oldenburg, this sausage is called Pinkelwurst (goetta sausage), and available in the winter months in a dish called Gruenkohl mit Pinkel (kale with Goetta sausage). Another similar dish is grutzwurst. The first commercial producer was Sander Packing.

Composition

While goetta comes in a variety of forms, all goetta is based around ground meat combined with pin-head

oat The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural). Oats appear to have been domesticated as a secondary crop, as their seeds ...

s, the "traditional

cook's way of stretching a minimum amount of meat to feed a maximum number of people." Usually goetta is made from pork, but occasionally contains equal parts pork and beef. Goetta is typically flavored with some combination of

bay leaves The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used as a herb in cooking. It can be used whole, either dried or fresh, in which case it is removed from the dish before consumption, or less commonly used in ground form. The flavour that a bay leaf ...

rosemary ''Salvia rosmarinus'' (), commonly known as rosemary, is a shrub with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers. It is a member of the sage family, Lamiaceae. The species is native to the Mediterranean r ...

black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diameter ...

clove Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands, or Moluccas, in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring, or Aroma compound, fragrance in fin ...

s, and

thyme Thyme () is a culinary herb consisting of the dried aerial parts of some members of the genus ''Thymus (plant), Thymus'' of flowering plants in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are native to Eurasia and north Africa. Thymes have culinary, medici ...

. It contains onions and sometimes other vegetables. The USDA standards for goetta require that it contain no less than 50% meat. While similar to Pennsylvanian scrapple and North Carolinian

in that it is a dish created by German immigrants and uses a grain product for the purpose of stretching out pork to feed more people, scrapple is made with

cornmeal Maize meal is a meal (coarse flour) ground from dried maize. It is a common staple food and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but it is not as fine as wheat flour can be.Herbst, Sharon, ''Food Lover's Companion'', Third Editi ...

and livermush with either cornmeal or

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

rather than the pinhead oats used in goetta. In other parts of Ohio where Germans settled there are similar dishes named grits or grutze.

Preparation and serving

Goetta is made with meat, oats, broth, spices, often onions, and occasionally other vegetables, simmered until thick, poured into loaf pans, and chilled or allowed to cool completely so that the loaves become firm enough to slice. It is then cut into slices and fried, often in butter. Traditionally goetta is served as a breakfast food, but it is also put into sandwiches and used as a topping for burgers and pizza.

Commercial distribution

A number of commercial distributors produce and sell goetta in the parts of

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, and

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

near Cincinnati. Glier's Goetta, established in 1946, produces more than 1,000,000 lb (450

metric ton The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...

s) annually, around 99 percent of which is consumed locally in Greater Cincinnati. Queen City Sausage is the next largest producer, while multiple small and artisanal producers also make goetta in and around Cincinnati.

Goettafest

"Glier's Goettafest" is an annual culinary festival held in August on the Ohio River waterfront near

Newport, Kentucky Newport is a list of Kentucky cities, home rule-class city in Campbell County, Kentucky, United States. It is at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Licking River (Kentucky), Licking rivers across from Cincinnati. The population was 14,150 ...

's Newport on the Levee. The festival celebrates both the dish and Greater Cincinnati's

German American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

heritage. While the main focus of the festival is goetta served in many different ways, it also typically includes music, dancing, and other public entertainment. In 2019 it expanded to two consecutive weekends. The first festival was held in 2002.

Misconception

Glier's markets goetta as the "German Breakfast Sausage," which may create the impression that it is something commonly eaten for breakfast in Germany. Cincinnati food expert Dann Woellert says, "Will you find something on a menu called goetta in a Westphalian gasthaus? The answer is no," but that

grützwurst Kaszanka is a traditional blood sausage in Central and Eastern European cuisine. It is made of a mixture of pig's blood, pork offal (commonly liver), and buckwheat ( kasha) or barley stuffed in a pig intestine. It is usually flavored with onion ...

and knipp are similar "meat gruels".

References

{{sausage Cuisine of Cincinnati Kentucky cuisine American sausages German-American culture in Cincinnati German-American cuisine Breakfast Meat and grain sausages Savory puddings Precooked sausages American pork dishes