“A full-size vending machine was converted graphically and functionally to dispense one-pound rolls of goetta,” Balasa said. “It’s the world’s only one.”

Goetta, a German dish, is often compared to breakfast sausage or scrapple. It is a unique, delicious and nutritious mixture of pork, beef, steel-cut (pinhead) oats, and seasonings.

Ohio and Money magazines featured stories about goetta in 2003, and late 2002, editors of highbrow foodie pub Saveur named goetta as one of their “100 Favorite Foods, Places and Things.” That’s pretty incredible considering those editors live in New York, and no doubt just learned to spell goetta. They probably still can’t say get-uh.

“There’s nothing like goetta anywhere in the world,” says Artie Kidwell, chairman of Goettafest. The foodstuff “is totally unique to Greater Cincinnati and just one particular area of Germany, up in its northeast quadrant.”

More from the Enquirer, CityBeat, and of course the Glier’s Goetta.