Goetta Taste of Covington
story by Donna Hecker & photography by Talitha Schroeder
Northern Kentucky has a flavor all its own.
It’s the smack of a screen door when you walk into Herb and Thelma’s. Where they only take cash and there’s a rotary phone on the wall, and two guys working the counter – one who pours your beer and one who writes up your order and slides it behind the tickets ahead of you.
It’s the waitress at Dixie Chili who serves your three-way with a Bengals joke on the side. Or Wunderbar, where they make metts seasoned with crushed Grippos, a combination inspired by camping trips to the Red River Gorge; and the bartender answers a question about half-pints with a tale of hobbits gone wild.
It's the pantry-sized Dee Felice Market with Momo’s fresh baked bread, and petite twin sets of pork chops in the freezer, and a wall of wine for sale.
It’s folks like the Finkes who’ve been in business for over a century, each successive generation building on the one before, adding its own touches. LIke updating an old family specialty.
We interrupted Billy Finke one morning, cooking goetta at Bill Finke & Sons. Billy’s family has sold goetta and other sausages and meats for 150 years, first in Covington’s Mainstrasse neighborhood and later in nearby Taylor Mill.
Goetta is practically synonymous with Cincinnati, but by all accounts, the Finkes’ butcher shop in Covington was the first to produce and sell it commercially. Several companies make it now and lots of families still do, too. When I was growing up, every slice of goetta on our breakfast table was made by either Grandma Day or Aunt Mary Vogel.
Today, Billy Finke and his two brothers run the store named for their dad, who passed away in 2007. Each brother has his specialty – Billy’s is goetta. He was a little evasive when asked how he seasoned it.
“Salt, pepper, onions, bay leaves. That’s what it says on the package. But we put a little bit different stuff in there to make it our own. That’s why everybody says, ‘how you make your goetta taste so good?’ My great-great-grandpa made it different than his dad; then his son made it different, and then his son, and then my dad. Then we tweaked it. Back in the 1800s, everybody made goetta to use up leftover fat and scraps of meat. But we make ours lean, with fresh ground pork butt that we take the fat cap off of and 80% lean ground chuck.”
[Now might be a good place to explain goetta to folks outside greater Cincinnati. It’s a mixture of meat (sometimes all pork, usually pork and beef) and pinhead oats; cooked slowly and separately in seasoned broth, then combined. To Billy’s point about using up scraps, Grandma Day made her goetta with pork necks and ground the cooked meat in a No.1 Griswold chopper. Some cooks add garlic or savory, and I swear Aunt Mary’s was flavored with Spice Islands poultry blend. The mixture is poured into a loaf pan and refrigerated until firm. Once firm, it’s sliced and browned before serving.]
Billy’s brother Timmy makes soups and does all the books; Donnie makes his signature “Don’s Awesome Pasta Salad”. Donnie’s son Steven creates dips like French Onion and Salami and Jarlsberg Cheese. Billy’s own son, Cole, is in charge of the meatballs in their freezer case.
“The funny thing about the meatballs… years ago we had some meatballs we bought from somewhere, already cooked. And some old lady, about ninety – good nineties – an Italian lady; she came to my dad and says, ‘Your meatballs suck. Here’s a recipe.’ And we never seen her since. Which is too bad because we wanted to tell her we’ve been selling her meatballs for 30 years now.”
“Cole’s got Aspergers a little bit; his meatballs are perfect. He shapes them by hand. Exactly this big and every meatball exactly the same.” Cole also makes the filling for Sloppy Joes or, as they’re listed on the menu, “Sloppy Coles.”
Billy hopes Cole will take his place one day, maybe his other son will, too. And they’ll put their own mark on Bill Finke & Sons. Like a whole lot of other new stuff happening in Northern Kentucky.
A young couple has opened Tuba Baking Co. in the little town of Dayton, down the street from where my Grandpa Day’s grocery once stood. They bake hand-knotted pretzels made of rye and spelt, and serve schnitzel and flammkuchen and Avril-Bleh metts.
We sampled exquisite Japanese pastries at Chako, created by a retired nurse who trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. And when Kealoha’s Kitchen relocates to Mainstrasse, we want to go back for Hawaiian specialties. Then we’ll finish our day with tapas and a Voyager cocktail at Juniper’s Gin Bar while live Brazilian jazz plays in the background.
Northern Kentucky has a flavor all its own. It’s goetta and grilled metts and homemade sauerkraut and sourdough rye pretzels. But it’s also mochi and shakshuka and mochiko chicken. And where, no matter what you’re eating, you’ll taste Bill Finke’s final words of advice to his sons: “You wanna stay in business, make good stuff, good quality. Be accountable.”
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Hecker Family German Potato Salad
Hecker family cookouts always included three non-negotiable dishes – metts and brats and German potato salad. The whole point of German Potato Salad is to enjoy it while it’s still warm, or at least room temperature, so plan accordingly. Although we would never judge anyone who eats refrigerated leftovers.
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