Where to eat Haspel in Frankfurt

Pickled pork knuckle simmered until wobbling, served with sauerkraut, bread and mustard in Frankfurt's old tavern tradition. Gelatinous, unfashionable and quietly magnificent.

Haspel is the lower shank of the pig, cured in brine and simmered whole, an economy cut from the era when Frankfurt's taverns fed dock workers and market porters rather than tourists. The meat cooks to a sticky, gelatinous richness that the city's sharp apfelwein was practically designed to cut. It has faded from many menus as schnitzel conquered the tavern kitchen, which makes the houses still simmering Haspel a marker of the old school, worth seeking out for the disappearing plates of working Frankfurt.