Meat feast: the ‘Metzgete’

More than a charcuterie board

The harvest season is Metzgete season: since the early 20th century, this rustic meal has been served across towns and the countryside, drawing sausage lovers to taverns and restaurants in their droves – to this very day. (Image: advertisement from the district of Affoltern)

Before it was marketed as a seasonal culinary speciality, Metzgete was a traditional way to eat your own meat. Home slaughters in the colder months were a highlight of the farmer’s year and were accompanied by a variety of customs. (Image: ETH Library Zurich, E-Periodica)

The term ‘Metzgete’ was soon being used metaphorically, for example to describe a legendary bicycle race. Considered a brutal race with many crashes, the Zurich Championship, which has been held regularly since 1917, was nicknamed the ‘Züri-Metzgete’. (Image: Beat Marti/ZB Zürich, Tages-Anzeiger press image archive)

The images evoked by the word ‘Metzgete’ make it a popular namesake for all sorts of other bloody and gruesome things. For example, for crime novels with local inspiration… (Image: Alex Macartney/ZB Zürich)

…or for a thriller with a connection to Zurich… (Image: ZB Zürich)

…or even a horror movie filmed in the city on the Limmat.

The term ‘Metzgete’ is now used to refer to a meat platter usually served in restaurants. It is normally topped with black pudding, liver sausage, bratwurst and other meat products, and served with boiled potatoes and sauerkraut.

Until the early 20th century, however, the term had a wider range of meanings: ‘Metzgete’ referred to the slaughter day on the farm, the hearty sausage supper that the farming families celebrated with afterwards and the traditional meat gifts that were distributed to neighbours and relatives after the slaughter.

As a look in this historical dictionary shows, the term was also used figuratively as early as the 18th century, with ‘Metzgete’ being used to describe a bloody brawl. This brutal connotation has earned Metzgete lasting popularity as the namesake of all things gruesome: the legendary Zurich bike race, crime novels and even a horror film made in Zurich.

Bloody craft

‘Studie von Schweinen’ by Conrad Meyer, created between 1634 and 1689. (Image: ZB Zürich)

Pig dealer, as portrayed by Zurich engraver David Herrliberger in his 1751 ‘Ausruf-Bilder’ [illustrated books depicting street vendors and their cries]. (Image: ZB Zürich)

In the 19th century, it was popular for pigs to be fattened for personal consumption, and the animals were also present in residential areas, as this photograph from 1891 shows. (Image: Robert Breitinger/ZB Zürich)

A Zurich children’s book in 1897 depicts a home slaughter as a neighbourhood spectacle that attracts curious onlookers of all ages. (Image: Ludwig Richter/ZB Zürich)

Slaughtering methods have barely changed over the centuries. Historical illustrations of home slaughters, like this one by Conrad Meyer from 1657, always show similar scenes… (Image: ZB Zürich)

…and similar equipment and tools. (Image: Erwin Bernath/ETH Library Zurich, E-Periodica)

… sowie vergleichbare Geräte und Werkzeuge. (Bild: Erwin Bernath / ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, E-Periodica)

The walk to the meat refrigerated section of the supermarket is a recent development. Until the 20th century, rural areas met their own demand for meat by being self-sufficient: ‘Almost every household fattened one or two pigs,’ said an old wine producer around 1930 about his youth in a rural part of the canton. As winter approached, time came for the Metzgete.

Slaughter was mostly carried out by a butcher going from house to house. He relied on the active assistance of the farming family for the varied and strenuous steps of the process. After the animal had been killed, exsanguinated, skinned, gutted and dismembered, the butcher moved to the next step: making sausages. In addition to black pudding, liver sausage and bratwurst, which were to be consumed quickly, pork and pork rind sausages were also produced. Like ham or bacon, these were preserved by smoking, while other pieces were preserved by salting. In poorer farming families, these long-lasting products formed their primary meat supply, and needed to last for the whole of the coming year.

Small gifts (of meat) maintain friendships

Metzgete products such as black pudding and liver sausage, which could not be preserved, had to be consumed quickly. A lot of these products were given away: the farmer’s children distributed the Metzgete and delivered packages of sausages to neighbours and relatives.

Particularly generous gifts were enjoyed by pastors and occasionally teachers, who could expect a ham or another prized cut. This tradition echoed older legal systems: in feudal Zurich, civil servants were sometimes paid in kind – often including an annual Metzgete. For example, the doctors of the city of Zurich’s orphanages still received a gift of meat every year back in the 18th century.

In democratic Zurich, such gifts in kind went out of fashion. As relics of an earlier profit economy, they increasingly stank of corruption. Historian Emil Stauber summed this up in 1924 for the whole of the Zurich area, saying that the ‘once commonplace ham for the priest […] belonged in almost all cases to the past’.

‘Unfortunately, we younger people don’t know anything of an obligatory Metzgete, […] of all the sweet treats schoolmasters used to enjoy in the “good old days”!’

Friedrich Zollinger, teacher in Hottingen, 1885

Happy eating: the custom of the sausage supper

On the evening of the slaughter, the farming family invited guests for a sausage supper. Guests included the butcher, neighbours, relatives and occasionally also teachers and pastors. The following dishes were served in the Zurich area:

• ‘Fischwis’ (a broth with lungs, heart, etc.)
• ‘Gnagi’ (cured trotters, knuckle, ears, tail and snouts)
• Liver sausage and black pudding with ‘Wäckerli’ on top (stomach filled with black pudding mixture)
• Bratwurst

Metzgete events were lively affairs. Guests sang, danced and ‘drank plentifully’, as a Zurich folklore expert put it in 1909. The exuberant gathering even became the subject of proverbs: at the end of the 19th century, if you talked about something happening ‘like it does at a sausage supper in Watt near Regensdorf’, you meant there was absolute chaos.

There were particular customs associated with the sausage supper. ‘Chrumbei’ singing was widespread until the early 20th century. Children and young people went from house to house and sang songs begging for sausages – known as Chrum(b)bei songs. As a thank you, the farming family gave them a few sausages.

From Ludwig Tobler’s ‘Schweizerischen Volksliedern’ (1884), volume 2.

From Ludwig Tobler’s ‘Schweizerischen Volksliedern’ (1884), volume 2.

From Gottfried Kuhn’s ‘Zur Volkskunde von Maur’ (1922).

From ‘’s Chrumb-Bei-singe’ by Hermann Bebie (1933).

From ‘Sitten und Bräuche im Kanton Zürich’ by Emil Stauber (1924).

Controversial Metzgete

A sausage supper famously played an important role in the Reformation in Zurich. Nevertheless, rural sausage suppers were targeted by the Protestant authorities. The exuberant celebrations of the rural subjects were a persistent annoyance to Zurich’s councillors. Time and again, they tried to prevent them by means of regulation.

Even in later centuries, the Metzgete celebrations were regularly the cause of discontent. The reasons for criticism of the sausage suppers have changed over time and reflect significant historical developments in Zurich since the early modern period.

1582

Filthy feasts

Johann Wilhelm Stucki belonged to Zurich’s intellectual elite at the end of the 16th century. He was a professor of theology at the Collegium Carolinum and canon at the Grossmünster.

In 1582, he published his work ‘Antiquitatum convivialium libri III’, which sheds light on the cultural history of the banquet. At one point, he denounces the immorality of contemporary banquets, saying they sounded like a group of grunting pigs or other beasts, for which alcohol was responsible.

Stucki’s criticism reflected the stance of the Protestant city authorities. In their eyes, exuberant celebrations threatened a godly way of life and had to be limited.

1764

Endangering the sanctity of Sunday

After the Reformation, the number of authoritative decrees by which the councils of Zurich sought to regulate the lives of their subjects increased significantly. The so-called ‘moral mandates’ in particular had a profound impact on everyday life. They attempted to regulate countless areas of daily life, such as work, clothing, food, celebrations, consumption and attending church services.

The authorities issued such regulations to protect the population from impoverishment, but also out of religious concern for the godly conduct of their subjects. With the fall of the Ancien Régime in 1798 came the disappearance of the moral mandates, which had been observed less and less over the course of the 18th century.

1881

Criticism from a new angle: animal welfare

Inspired by role models from England, the first animal welfare organisations were founded in Switzerland in the mid-19th century. Philipp Heinrich Wolff from Weiningen, Zurich, was at the forefront of this educated bourgeois movement.

In 1881, Wolff published a propaganda leaflet in which a fictitious teacher is invited by the parents of a peasant boy to a Metzgete. The schoolmaster discusses animal welfare issues with guests at a communal black pudding feast. Wolff did not criticise the consumption of meat per se, but the cruel conditions during slaughter and the presence of children when animals are killed.

1926

Merry ‘Freinächte’

At the beginning of the 20th century, rural home Metzgete became rarer. Instead, the sausage suppers shifted to the restaurant sector. Just like their countryside role models, the restaurant Metzgete of the interwar period were also a cheerful affair: in most cases, ‘Freinächte’ (wild nights) were approved and dance music was played.

1931

Times of crisis

The New York stock market crash of 1929 triggered a global economic crisis. From 1931 onwards, the consequences of this were also drastic in the canton of Zurich – the unemployment rate rose steadily until 1936.

The textile industry in the Zurich Oberland was severely affected by the crisis. In order to prevent further impoverishment of the population, several Oberland municipalities such as Wetzikon, Wald, Bäretswil and Hinwil restricted entertainment events. The wild nights, which in previous years were usually granted for restaurant Metzgete and had become established as part of popular entertainment culture, also fell victim to the restrictions.

1934

Black pudding and brawls

According to the historical dictionary, ‘Metzgete’ was also used metaphorically to refer to a bloody brawl. This transfer of the term originally refers to the act of slaughtering – but to a certain extent it also fits perfectly with the restaurant Metzgete: as police reports and court reports at the time show, alcohol flowed abundantly during the boisterous wild nights and the Metzgete feasts often ended in unruliness and brawls.

1940

Wartime

After the first year of the war, pork became increasingly scarce in Switzerland in autumn 1940. The Swiss Federal Office of War Food responded to the shortage with a range of measures to limit the consumption of meat. This included the strict regulation of home slaughters and a complete ban on commercial restaurant Metzgete.

1965

Tearing around like wild boar

The economic upswing in the post-war period increased the purchasing power of the Swiss population and thus the desire of the average Swiss person to have their own car. The stock of passenger cars increased significantly in the 1950s and 1960s compared to the pre-war years. This was also reflected in the accident statistics: more road traffic accidents occurred in the canton of Zurich in 1970 than ever before. Back then, there were no compulsory alcohol limits, speed limits or seatbelts. These loopholes in the law sometimes had fatal consequences on the evening drive home from a ‘merry’ Metzgete – as can be seen from countless police reports from the time.

1974

Bourgeois pigs

In the course of the political and cultural intergenerational conflicts of the 1970s, the restaurant Metzgete became the enemy of alternative and nonconformist minds. In the eyes of these critics, the sumptuous meat feast was symbolic of a dull and bourgeois Switzerland.

In ‘Nebelspalter’ in 1974, for example, Peter Heisch caricatured this kind of petite bourgeois gathering at Metzgete as follows:

‘Opinions are exchanged and confirmed with a loud burp; proud comparisons of the number of days worked on active service help maintain a sense of self-worth. Soon it is no longer clear whether the loose teeth of pasty figures are meant for the already gnawed bones, the government or the uncultivated strangers. Already slurring tongues, wrestling with the perils of a hot potato behind greasy lips, making vehement threats against long-haired dilly dalliers […].’

1976

Dimwitted pigs

In his novel ‘Schilten’ (1976), author and journalist Hermann Burger describes a bar Metzgete in the border region between Aargau and Lucerne with a rather unfavourable tone:

‘He is pushed into a low dining room and bursts into an orgy of eating. […] Entire clans are crammed together on long benches (…) and get stuck into the Metzgete, slashing the guts of black pudding and liver sausage so that the grey porridge and congealed blood splatters everywhere. […] Everyone is stabbing with their fork and trying to get the best bits. Beer or cider is drunk from large tankards. People gulp the meat down and stuff their bellies, and when a plate is empty, it is passed over everyone’s heads to the bar, and the rest of the pork lard drips on satin skirts and breeches.’

Stuffing up the ‘good old days’

At the beginning of the 20th century, the status of rural home Metzgete changed as a result of various modernisations. Many Metzgete customs disappeared. Former teacher Schneebeli reported from the Säuliamt district in 1904: ‘Nowadays we see very little of the sausage supper, almost as little as presenting a nice ham to the priest!’

However, this ‘extinction’ of traditional home slaughters triggered a counter-movement. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, the Metzgete became part of modern folklore, and restaurants, as well as the event calendars of associations and parties, established the meat dish as a seasonal speciality. The home slaughter lives on to this day in local newspapers and books – as a popular hook for a glimpse back into the ‘good old days’.

The Metzgete has recently experienced a revival: urban foodies can feast on black pudding or organic pig snouts and tails in hipster restaurants. The sausage supper is no longer regarded as the dish of the cultural pedant, but as an authentic and sustainable dish that aligns with the ‘nose to tail’ principle.

‘What do we city dwellers still know of the ‘Metzgete’ of old grist and grain, with […] rural festivities? In our economies, it has long been supplanted by game cuisine […] it fits in with the internationalism that is becoming more and more fashionable in the city. The ‘Metzgete’ is only known and appreciated as an old custom in those places where the land is still cultivated and where a long-established population lives.’ 

‘Neue Zürcher Zeitung’, no. 2458, 15 December 1929

With the decline of house butchers at the beginning of the 20th century, gastronomy discovered this culinary tradition for itself: an ad in the ‘Schweizer Hotel-Revue’ promotes advertisements for restaurateurs in 1920. (Image: ETH Library Zurich, E-Periodica)

Forsthaus Sihlwald advertises its Metzgete in the ‘NZZ’ in 1909 – and proudly highlights the meat originating from its own farms. (Image: ZB Zürich)

City dwellers didn’t have to suffer from starvation, either: in autumn and winter, Metzgete also shaped urban gastronomy, as shown by this advertisement printed in the ‘Neue Zürcher Nachrichten’ in December 1914. (Image: ZB Zürich)

Metzgete, great Sauser and dancing: the recipe for success for a jolly conclusion in the Oberland of the 1920s, as advertised in January 1923 in Wetziker’s ‘Freisinnigen’. (Image: ZB Zürich)

When vegan options were still rare in Zähringer: an advertisement in an issue of the ‘Neue Zürcher Nachrichten’ in September 1931 advertised a Metzgete in Niederdorf. (Image: ZB Zürich)

Even before frogs’ legs, the meat platters should entice foodies to Rümlang – advertisement in an issue of the ‘NZZ’ from October 1931. (Image: ZB Zürich)

Zurich Oberland in November 1948: the restaurant advertisements in ‘Freisinnigen’ are impressive evidence of the Metzgete’s need to catch up after years of restrictions due to the war economy. (Image: ZB Zürich)

In 1958, Metzgete were even eaten at Paradeplatz – yet ‘in the traditional country style’, as the Rebe branches advertised in the ‘NZZ’ in October 1958. (Image: ZB Zürich)

The ‘Swiss Style’ graphic design also reached Metzgete adverts in the 1960s, as illustrated by this advertisement in an issue of the ‘NZZ’ published in November 1961. (Image: ZB Zürich)

The Metzgete in the two Rebe branches seem to be doing well – the ‘wholesome, country style’ offering continued to be advertised in the 1960s, as shown here in an issue of the ‘NZZ’ in October 1964. (Image: ZB Zürich)

In September 1973, Mövenpick at the airport advertises its Metzgete in the ‘NZZ’ as a nostalgic culinary event. (Image: ZB Zürich).

The Döltschistube at the Atlantis Zurich also featured nostalgic motifs and dialect in its November 1973 ‘NZZ’ advertisement. (Image: ZB Zürich)

‘Buur isch Trumpf!’ – in October 1981, Migros restaurants advertised their ‘Buure-Metzgete’ [farmer’s Metzgete] in the ‘Neuen Zürcher Nachrichten’. (Image: ZB Zürich)

The Adliswiler Grüt farm, which belonged to the Mövenpick Group, advertises another ‘Buure-Metzgete’ in the ‘NZZ’ in September 1981. (Image: ZB Zürich)

‘Just like in grandma’s day’: in the 1990s, nostalgia continued to be a popular motif in Metzgete listings – shown here in an advertisement from an issue of the ‘NZZ’ in November 1990. (Image: ZB Zürich)

Even at the end of the 20th century, you could still enjoy musical entertainment at a black pudding feast in some restaurants, as promoted in this advertisement from the ‘NZZ’ from November 1994. (Image: ZB Zürich)

In 2005, a stylish poster advertised a Metzgete at the Tessinerkeller in District 4 of Zurich, where the sausage supper made a comeback in an updated guise. (Photo: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, poster collection, ZHdK)

Suggested reading

• ‘Goldene Zeit’ (Band 2) by Eduard Schönenberger: the chapter ‘D’Metzgete’ provides a detailed description of a rural home Metzgete.
• ‘Jahresbrauch im Zeitenlauf’ by Eduard Strübin: in the Basel region specifically, but his Metzgete excursion is also very interesting from a Zurich perspective.
• 's Chrumb-Bei-singe’ by Hermann Bebie: an essay written in Oberland dialect on the tradition of Chrumbei singing.
• ‘Züri-Metzgete. 100 x Meisterschaft von Zürich - der Radklassiker’ by Martin Born: slightly less bloody than a pork feast, but pork knuckle plays a prominent role here as well.

Dr Tobias Scheidegger, cultural scientist/historian and employee of the Department of Turicensia
November 2025

Header image: Excerpt from Conrad Meyer’s ‘Abriss, und Beschreibung der XII.Monaten nach ihren Haubtwerken’, 1663. (ZB Zürich)