«Metzgete»
When you find black pudding, liver sausages, bacon, pork ribs and liver on the menu, it’s slaughtering season. It is impossible to imagine a menu, especially in country inns, without a «Schlachtplatte», a traditional autumn dish.
The «Metzgete» – Swiss vernacular for slaughtering – took place traditionally at the end of the grazing season on Alpine pastures. Once the well-fed animals – mainly pigs for the «Metzgete» – came back down to the villages after the Alpine season, male animals not suited for breeding were slaughtered. Peasants then had more space in their pigsties and could save themselves the costs of fodder. So at the end of the season, they would arrange a lavish feast for their farmhands. In the days before fridges and freezers, parts of the pig that could not be preserved with salt or smoked had to be eaten immediately.
«Beizenmetzgete»
«Beizenmetzgete» (pickled Metzgete) came into being towards the end of the 1940’s when meat production slowly became industrialised and professionalised and when it was no longer permitted to slaughter on farms. In the old days, boiled pork belly usually referred to as “kettle meat”, – the head, tail, kidneys, stomach and liver – , cooked in a kettle immediately after slaughtering, constituted a major part of the «Metzgete». Today, this has largely been replaced by pork ribs, black pudding and liver sausages. Boiled potatoes or Swish hash browns, sauerkraut or dried green beans and, of course, apple wedges are traditional side dishes.
The «Metzgete» has again become increasingly popular in recent years, mainly for two reasons. In time of globalisation, people are getting back to basics, to traditions that one would like to retain and pass on. The «Metzgete» is also in line with new diets geared towards sustainability where every part of an animal is used. This year, you will once again find an increasing number of restaurants, also in towns, offering a «Metzgete» on a number of late autumn days.