Meatloaf, the greatest dish of all time.
Fight me on it.
Meatloaf gets a bad rap. When most people think of meatloaf, they think of a unambiguous, mushy, flavorless slop in a loaf shape… and they aren’t wrong (most of the time.) Most meatloaf at restaurants falls into two categories:
The aforementioned slopped shape loaf, or;
Meatloaf that’s try hard
The best place to get meatloaf is sitting across the counter from my Granny talking about life as she hand mixes each individual piece together. But, before we get into my Granny’s meatloaf (and my quest to recreate it), let’s me first address the restaurant meatloaf.
Type 1 Meatloaf: The Reason Meatloaf has a Bad Rap
Type 1 Meatloaf is often found in diners and ‘comfort’ food places. It’s the type of place I walk into and think to myself “this joint could have good meatloaf.” The menus are either trifold coffee stained paper menus, or the the plastic covered kind that haven’t been updated in years (sometimes decades.) Usually these places have some sort of signature dish (pancakes, fried chicken, etc.) and I usually skip over that to order the meatloaf in hopes that it will work.
It’s there on the menu. I ask the waitress if it’s good. Usually, they hmm and haw to say “yes it’s good” but in the way you just know that they have never tasted it.
Sometime later, a plate comes out with a brown rectangle usually with sauce on top, usually mashed potatoes and some sort of veg. Each and every time, I’m hopeful as the first bite approaches my tastebuds.
Then it’s just wrong. It’s bland. Under seasoned and a disgrace to meatloaf.
My wife shakes her head, laughing and says “You know you’re going to be disappointed every time.”
I eat it anyways.
All we’re out is $10-12 dollars.
Type 2 Meatloaf: The Try-Hard
I ate my my first Try-Hard meatloaf at Mimi’s Cafe in Overland Park, KS in 2011. Mimi’s is a chain cafe that serves “sweet and savory breakfast dishes to mouthwatering entrées, crowd-pleasing to tempting desserts, every dish is made with care, just for you and your family” with a weird rustic-French-American theme.
That was also the last time I ate at Mimi’s. But, let get into this offensive platter of try-hard meatloaf that arrived.
It was over a college-break. I was meeting my favorite high school teacher for a catch-up lunch. We have coffee and chat. I pick up the menu and see it there:
15-20 minutes later, it arrives. It looks decent. The first bite hits my tongue AND it is wrong. The sauce on top competes with the loaf itself for flavor dominance. The texture of the meatloaf is crunchy and soupy at the same time. To this day, it’s one of the universe’s greatest mysteries. It was dry and could not hold the shape. It tasted like it had a whole jar of Italian seasoning thrown on top.
Since the Mimi’s meatloaf incident, there have been many plates of meatloaf ordered at nicer restaurants and they all have the same fate. They are just trying too hard.
Let’s talk about a Meatloaf that had a sickly sweet BBQ sauce, or the one made entirely out of hot Italian sausage, or the one that had cream added to it, or the ‘meatloaf reimagined’… No matter how you slice it, these meatloafs were just trying too hard.
You’re probably wonder why I’m making a stand for meatloaf. It’s a dish most associated with old folks, 1950-1970’s housewives and has a bad rap in pop culture.
Meatloaf is one of my favorite all-time foods.
My whole life I’ve been really close with my Granny (my mom’s mom.) She’s a woman who’s lived in rural Kansas her whole life. The looming shadow of the dust-bowl and depression echoed through her life. Her dad was a share-cropper who was given housing on the landowners property and a small share of the crop he farmed (which he then sold to provide for the family.)
Each school break, my parents would drive down I-70, stop at a fast-food truck stop to meet my grandparents. They would shuffle my bags and me from their car to my grandparents’. In a time when divorces were happening, moving every 9 months, the stress of blending families, and terrible step-siblings, the trips to my grandparents were heaven.
My grandma had a countertop in the kitchen. We spent hours talking while she cooked. From 5 or 6, I would sit across from her and she mixed, molded and cooked us food. Sometimes I would help. Sometimes we would just talk. Sometimes we sat in silence.
Meatloaf was always on the menu when I visited.
It usually started with us getting out a couple pounds of ground beef from the deep-freeze in the basement. The beef was one my grandparents had raised and slaughtered. She would let it thaw while we putzed around, rand errands, did chores in the flatbed, or played card games.
Then it was time to cook.
She chopped an onion (whatever kind she had) with a pairing knife. She pulled out some breadcrumbs, stale bread, or sometimes oatmeal to add to it. An egg as a binder and some seasonings. Everything was measured in an old coffee mug.
In a big bowl, she plopped down the ground beef, chopped onion, egg, bread crumb and seasonings. Next she rolled up her sleeves, and began mixing her meatloaf with her hands.
I sat across from her 100’s of times, and still don’t know the recipe. When I ask her what’s in it, like most things she makes, she goes “whatever we have. I don’t have a recipe.” Her smile huge. I don’t remember what we talked about while we cooked, but we talked and laughed a lot.
It was always 100% ground beef, mostly 80/20. It always had an onion. It always had an egg and a starch. It’s always topped with ketchup.
Almost always it’s served with mashed potatoes.
Sometimes it’s also served with creamed green beans, or canned green beans, or creamed corn or canned corn.
It always was made with love.