The Meatloaf Tradition

The Meatloaf Tradition

According to food historians, meatloaf has been prepared in many different ways from ancient times all the way to the present day. Meatloaf has typically been mixed with vegetables, rice or bread and spiced up with herbs and other seasonings. Throughout history meatloaf has been served with or without sauce. The earliest known recipes for meatloaf style dishes are found in ancient Roman texts. Every culture in the world prepares their traditional version of meatloaf. In the U.S., meatloaf is so popular that it is considered standard fare in many homes and dining establishments. The cooks originally created meatloaf dishes using a portion of ground meat mixed with other ingredients to bulk it up to distribute the protein value to more people. They also made meatloaf to use up leftover food so it did not get wasted. Tough meats could be ground up and prepared as meatloaf to make it more palatable and easier to digest. In early American food history meatloaf was made from veal rather than ground beef since was a more economical meat.

Meatloaf recipes began showing up in American cookbooks in the late 1800’s. It is conjectured that meatloaf was not as popular then as it is now because of the unavailability of meat grinders. A cook that did not have a meat grinder was required to mince the meat by hand. Ground beef is more perishable that a whole piece of meat and lack of refrigeration could also have factored into the lack of meatloaf dishes. Around the turn of the century meat grinders were becoming more common soon ice boxes were replaced with electric or gas fridges. Since then variations on meatloaf have been showing up in restaurants, diners, women’s magazine, food manufacturers and cookbooks.

Karn Meats specialized in preparing custom meatloaf products for restaurants and institutional food service establishments using HACCP guidelines. Our goal is to provide a product that can be depended upon for consistency so that you customers know what to expect and you have the confidence that your food cost will remain stable. Please call us today at 1-800-221-9585 to place your order for custom wholesale meatloaf.

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