I thought I made it clear. I don’t like meatloaf.
In my very first column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, nearly four years ago, I wrote that I will try almost anything “except meatloaf. That is the one food I will not eat.”
As it turns out, I am not alone in this perfectly understandable and even admirable trait. Our esteemed restaurant critic Ian Froeb, a man widely renowned for his impeccable taste and educated palate, also hates the stuff.
So our boss and colleagues, who at first seem like such nice people but turn out to be the children of Satan, decided it would be fun to force us to eat it. A lot of it.
If you’ve ever seen A Clockwork Orange, you’ll remember the scene in which Malcolm McDowell is strapped to a chair and forced to watch images of violence. It was like that, only with our former friends pointing at us and laughing.
Before I get to the sordid details, I have been thinking about why I dislike meatloaf so much. I can’t speak for Ian, but I think the problem I have with it is that it is — or at least was, when I was young and impressionable — invariably overcooked.
Someone else, I forget who, had this theory, and it seems right to me. The traditional mixture for a meatloaf is equal parts beef, veal and pork. But for pork to be free from unpleasant disease, it has to be (or at least had to be) fully cooked. That meant the beef and veal were, by definition, overcooked and dry.
To cover up this flaw, cooks douse it in what they call a sauce but is in fact, generally, ketchup. Maybe ketchup with a few things added to it. Maybe a tomato sauce that isn’t exactly ketchup, but is, shall we say, ketchupy.
So meatloaf is overcooked, dry ground meat splashed with ketchup. I don’t understand why that’s considered desirable.
Six of our colleagues presented us with their best meatloaves (meatloafs? meats loaf?). Then they watched us choke it down while we made mean comments about it. We felt kind of bad about it, but you have to admit they deserved it: They were feeding us meatloaf.
We started with No-Frills Meatloaf. “I think I tasted a frill,” Ian said.
This was our control meatloaf, a standard, cooked-through slab of ground meat with a drizzle of ketchup. It tasted like meatloaf. In other words, it reminded me of everything I don’t like about meatloaf.
We were next served the Classic Meatloaf which, as Ian pointed out, was moister than the control meatloaf. It also had bell pepper, which sent Ian into full-blown restaurant-critic mode: “The bell pepper isn’t very complex, but it cuts the sweetness a little bit.”
I thought it was marked by that overwhelming blandness that so often afflicts meatloaf. More salt would have helped, but it wouldn’t have helped much.
So we sampled the Italian Meatloaf. I looked at Ian. Ian looked at me.
“What about this strikes you as Italian?” I said.
“The name,” he said.
Admittedly, that was before I had a bite with a thin slice of canned black olive in it, which is sort of Italian. And to be perfectly fair to the person who made it, it had enough spice that we thought it was made with not enough Italian sausage, when it actually had no sausage at all.
Even so, it tasted more of meatloaf than Italy.
Everyone oohed and aahed at the next offering, Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf with Apple-Bourbon Barbecue Sauce (“everyone,” in this case, meaning “everyone but Ian and me”).
I am of the opinion that the national obsession with bacon is like a fad that just won’t go away. It’s as if the country is sharing the same joke they can’t stop making, such as when everyone said “I’m just sayin’” or “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?” or “everything tastes better with bacon.”
I think of it as a crutch. When you want to add flavor to something, wrap it in bacon. Which is why you’d think it would help improve meatloaf.
But in this dish, it was the superb Apple-Bourbon Barbecue Sauce that really stood out. That stuff was great. The only problem was, it didn’t go with meatloaf. To our taste, it was too sweet for any red meat.
But chicken? Slather that sauce on grilled chicken and you’d have yourself a meal.
Did eating all this meatloaf change us? Did we suddenly become meatloaf fans?
Of course not.
Ian said, “At this point in my life, I’m more ambivalent about meatloaf than anti-meatloaf. And (after this tasting) I’m still ambivalent.”
My mind hasn’t been changed, either. Given the choice between meatloaf and anything else, I’ll always take anything else.
Editor’s note: The rest of us loved them all and didn’t leave a single crumb. So there.
No-Frills Meatloaf
Yield: 4 servings
1 medium onion chopped
1 pound lean ground beef
1 egg
¼ cup ketchup
¼ cup barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard
½ cup Italian bread crumbs
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix all ingredients together, place in 8-by-4-by-2½-inch loaf pan and bake for about an hour, to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.
Recipe by Hillary Levin
Classic Meatloaf
Yield: 8 servings
1 pound ground beef (not the leanest or the fattiest, use one in between)
¼ pound small package of ground pork
¾ cup shredded carrots
½ cup shredded or chopped celery
¾ cup diced onion
½ cup bread crumbs
¾ cup shredded cheese such as cheddar or colby
¼ cup ketchup
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon basil
Salt and pepper
1 egg, 2 if needed
15 ounce can of tomato sauce
Sliced rings of bell peppers
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all ingredients and form into a loaf. Place the loaf on a baking sheet or in a casserole dish and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 160 degrees.
3. After 30 minutes in the oven, pour a can of tomato sauce over the loaf and place sliced bell peppers on top.
Recipe by Cara DeMichelle
Italian Meatloaf
Yield: 8 servings
2 eggs
1½ pounds lean (at least 80 percent) ground beef
2 cups soft French bread crumbs
½ cup shredded parmesan cheese
¼ cup chopped fresh basil or 1½ teaspoons dried basil leaves
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (8 ounces) pizza sauce, divided
1½ cups shredded provolone cheese
1 jar (7.25 ounces) roasted red bell peppers, drained, chopped
¼ cup chopped ripe olives
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Stir in ground beef, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, basil, salt, pepper, garlic and ½ cup of the pizza sauce until well-combined.
2. Layer about ⅓ of meat mixture in the bottom of pan. Top evenly with half the provolone cheese, roasted peppers and olives. Then add ⅓ of meat mixture. Top with other half of provolone cheese, roasted red peppers and olives. Then top with remaining meat mixture.
3. Bake 40 minutes. Remove from oven; spoon remaining pizza sauce over loaf. Insert meat thermometer so bulb reaches center of loaf.
4. Return to oven; bake 15 to 20 minutes longer or until loaf is thoroughly cooked in center and thermometer reads 160 degrees. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.
Recipe adapted from pillsbury.com.
Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf with Apple-Bourbon Barbecue Sauce
Yield: 10 servings
For the sauce
½ cup apple juice
1 cup your favorite barbecue sauce
½ cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup ketchup
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup bourbon
For the meatloaf
1 cup Italian bread crumbs
2 pounds ground beef
1 packet McCormick’s Meat Loaf seasoning
1 egg
¾ pound bacon
1. Make the sauce. Combine all sauce ingredients in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat.
2. Spray 2 loaf pans with cooking spray.
3. Mix bread crumbs, ground beef, seasoning packet and egg well. Shape into 2 loaves and place in pans. Freeze for an hour then remove from pan.
4. Wrap with bacon, securing with a toothpick if needed.
5. Place meatloaf on a piece of foil shaped like it. Cook on a wood-fired pellet smoker until meat reaches 165 degrees. Serve with sauce.