Meatballs have become a very popular order to start a meal for many. Meatballs in the antipasti or appetizer section are now number fourteen among the most frequently seen items at Italian restaurants. These are often feature a combination of meats involving ground beef with pork and veal and are served with a tomato sauce. All-veal meatballs are also seen.
Meatballs were part of the southern Italian tradition of the immigrants; it was a way to make poor quality meat much more palatable. Usually stretched with bread or bread crumbs, it was always served as a main course, after the pasta or soup. In America, since beef, and pork and veal, were all plentiful and easily affordable, those meatballs eventually became quite larger and beefier than their Old World precursors, and served much more frequently. The additional calories and protein were certainly welcome by those doing heavy labor, a majority of the male immigrants. Here, with a much quicker lifestyle and limited time for meals, plump meatballs and pasta were eventually served together. This dish, a certifiably American creation and possibly even a restaurant one, was to become one of the most popular throughout the country. In 1924, Cane’s Spaghetti Station No. 1 in Glendale, just north of Los Angeles, was offering “Spaghetti or Ravioli with Polpette” – meatballs in Italian – as a part of a three-course 60-cent lunch. If not especially cheap at the time, it was likely a good deal. The word polpette, pohl-PEH-teh, is used at times by restaurants today in an effort to claim some level of authenticity. And polpette sounds fancier than meatballs.
Though long paired with spaghetti at restaurants, meatballs as a starter is something fairly new, just becoming common in the past decade or so. It was actually a rare sight before then. But people today really like meatballs. And more than just American diners. Along a side street in the Sicilian coastal city of Catania last month, I saw a restaurant with the name Polpetteria, a restaurant that specializes in meatballs. Though beef-heavy meatballs reign in America, this spot offers a very wide range of polpette: beef, horse, chicken, donkey, eggplant, zucchini and ricotta, potato, swordfish, tuna, and more. These are for the main course, though.
Meatballs were part of the southern Italian tradition of the immigrants; it was a way to make poor quality meat much more palatable. Usually stretched with bread or bread crumbs, it was always served as a main course, after the pasta or soup. In America, since beef, and pork and veal, were all plentiful and easily affordable, those meatballs eventually became quite larger and beefier than their Old World precursors, and served much more frequently. The additional calories and protein were certainly welcome by those doing heavy labor, a majority of the male immigrants. Here, with a much quicker lifestyle and limited time for meals, plump meatballs and pasta were eventually served together. This dish, a certifiably American creation and possibly even a restaurant one, was to become one of the most popular throughout the country. In 1924, Cane’s Spaghetti Station No. 1 in Glendale, just north of Los Angeles, was offering “Spaghetti or Ravioli with Polpette” – meatballs in Italian – as a part of a three-course 60-cent lunch. If not especially cheap at the time, it was likely a good deal. The word polpette, pohl-PEH-teh, is used at times by restaurants today in an effort to claim some level of authenticity. And polpette sounds fancier than meatballs.
Though long paired with spaghetti at restaurants, meatballs as a starter is something fairly new, just becoming common in the past decade or so. It was actually a rare sight before then. But people today really like meatballs. And more than just American diners. Along a side street in the Sicilian coastal city of Catania last month, I saw a restaurant with the name Polpetteria, a restaurant that specializes in meatballs. Though beef-heavy meatballs reign in America, this spot offers a very wide range of polpette: beef, horse, chicken, donkey, eggplant, zucchini and ricotta, potato, swordfish, tuna, and more. These are for the main course, though.
RSS Feed
