Cincinnati, which earned the moniker Porkopolis because it once packed more pork than any other city on earth, is crazy for metts. Mett is short for mettwurst, a cured, deeply smoked, rugged-grind sausage, about twice as portly as a regular hot dog, firmly packed inside natural casing. As much a Queen City signature dish as goetta or Cincinnati chili, metts are made and sold by the city’s old-time butcher shops.
There is no better place to enjoy a mett than at a table on the sidewalk just outside Avril-Bleh, a butchershop that dates back to the nineteenth century (house motto: “A link with the past since 1894”). Avril’s display of tube steaks is a postgraduate education in oinky edibles. The curriculum includes bierwurst, bratwurst, knockwurst, bockwurst (spring only), yard sausage (with garlic), tiny links, oatmeal rings, liverwurst, kielbasa, wieners (natural casing or skinless), Cajun andouille, smoked Italian and chorizo, and metts that are made regular, hot, super-hot, and Cheddar cheese–laced. Cooked at a sidewalk cart that sends the aroma of grilling pork through the neighborhood, metts are kingly sausages, their skin audibly crackly when severed by teeth, their insides, while not oozy, radiant with sweet pork flavor, smoke, and an energetic shot of spice. A true taste of Cincinnati!
In the multisausage city of Cincinnati, the mett (short for mettwurst) is a street-eats favorite. Shown here: a cheese mett.