"From Duluth to Birmingham/ He's the pork chop Dapper Dan/ He's the keenest ham what am/ Cincinnati dancing pig."
_ "Cincinnati Dancing Pig" by Al Lewis and Guy Wood
More than a century before Vic Damone bucked up our flagging hearts with that stirring testament to the swiney terpsichore, Cincinnati was already known as Porkopolis for its place as America's pre-eminent packer of hogs. Indeed, Cincinnati magazine reports that, back in the day, "slurping, grunting, reeking pigs infested every yard and alley." Yeesh. I guess that explains the phrase, "as common as a Cincinnati street pig."
The abundance of bacon-y beasts and their consequently cheap cuts contributed to one of the The City of Seven Hill's most sublime culinary creations. No, not Cincinnati chili, you ... you ... philistine. Goetta.
Ah, goetta (GED-da), that oaty, meaty breakfast loaf, sliced into slabs and fried in fat to tobacco brown. If Cincinnati is indeed, as Longfellow rhapsodized, the Queen of the West, then surely goetta is her scepter.
