Meatballs anyone? Most people love them!
It’s the traditional start to Sunday dinner in most Italian families, served hot with fresh mozzarella cheese, crusty Italian bread, and fried hot green peppers (the long ones). Whether they’re fresh out of the pot or just garnishing a bunch of spaghetti, nothing beats a meatball.
Here’s a surprising fact about making meatballs: Give ten people the same basic recipe and each batch will turn out different. Go figure…
No one really knows the true origin of the meatball, but in a 2003 article titled “Ask the Chef,” John Piso describes it this way:
“Meatballs originated in an Italian kitchen when he discovered he had some ground beef leftover. Hamburger meat became popular early in the last century, so it makes sense to assume that meatballs began then, as did the meatloaf I could just see a good Italian housewife ready to make a tomato sauce and find some leftover ground beef in her ice chest, lightning struck her with this idea: ground beef, garlic, cheese, bread grated parsley and a little beaten egg to hold it all together. Fry it in oil, toss it in the sauce and Bingo! Two dishes in one pot – pure genius!”
The “Christopher Columbus” question about meatballs is… Why are meatballs round?
The answer: meatballs aren’t always round. In Italy meatballs are called polpette and are oval. Polpettes are also often served with tomato sauce.
Actually, if meatballs were flat, they would be hamburger patties and would break up into tomato sauce. Hand size is also a factor. Big hand, big meatball, little hand, little meatball.
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, describes a meatball as “a generally spherical mass of minced meat and other ingredients, such as bread or breadcrumbs, minced onion, various spices, or eggs, usually fried in a pan or baked in an oven. Except By shape and size (there’s usually more than one meatball per serving), meatballs are very similar to meatloaf.”
That may be half true. A meatball is only similar to a meatloaf because of the ingredients that bind it together. Meatloaf is a traditional American dish, made in the form of a loaf, sometimes stuffed, sliced, and topped with brown gravy. A meatball is the stuff dreams are made of because it has a nostalgia factor: many remember sleeping late on a Sunday morning and waking up to the most delicious smell and sound in the world: meatballs sizzling in a pan. It’s always so hard to resist grabbing one. Can’t get that feeling from a meatloaf!
Is a meatball by any other name still a meatball? The answer is Yes, because one ingredient remains constant: Ground Beef. Ancient Roman cookbook author Apicius included many meatball-type recipes:
o Albanian fried meatballs include feta cheese.
o Danish meatballs are known as frikadeller and are usually fried, and are usually made from pork.
o In Germany, meatballs are called Frikadellen (in the north) or Buletten (in the east) or Fleischpflanzerl or Fleischkuumlchle if you are in the south
o In Greece, meatballs are called ‘keftedes’ and usually include onions and mint leaves in the mix.
o In Italy, meatballs are known as polpette. Outside of Italy, they are commonly served with spaghetti as in “spaghetti and meatballs”.
o Japanese hanbagu hamburger steak is based on similar ingredients.
o In Norway, meatballs are called kjoslashttkaker (“meat pies”) and resemble Danish frikadellers, but are usually made from ground meat. The dish is traditionally served with boiled potatoes, gravy, lingonberry jam and/or stewed green peas. Some people also like to add fried/caramelized onions on the side.
o Suecas (Swedish meatballs) are made with ground beef or a mixture of ground beef and pork, mixed with milk-soaked breadcrumbs and finely chopped onions. They are seasoned with white pepper and salt. Swedish meatballs are traditionally served with gravy, boiled potatoes, lingonberry jam, and fresh pickled cucumber. (In the Babylon 5 TV show all the alien races have Swedish meatballs, albeit with different names)
o Turkish cuisine features more than 80 types of dumplings (koumlfte), most of which are regionally produced.
The meatball is so loved that we even sing about it. Check out Tom Glazer’s American classic “On top of Spaghetti” which features a wayward meatball. For decades he had a children’s choir singing lines like:
On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese.
I lost my poor meatball when someone sneezed.
Rolled off the table, rolled on the floor,
And then my poor meatball came rolling out the door.
He rolled in the garden and under a bush,
And then my poor meatball was just mush.
The porridge was as tasty as could be,
And early next summer it grew into a tree.
The tree was all covered in beautiful moss.
He grew great big meatballs and tomato sauce.
So if you eat spaghetti topped with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball and never sneeze.
One last thing… It’s not very nice to call someone “Meatball”. the American heritage; Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition defines calling someone a meatball the same as calling them boring or stupid. So if you must use mention of food in your insult attempts, I suggest you call them “Meatloaf!”