Meat Loaf

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

meat loaf a dish whose visibility is considerably higher in real life, especially in N. America and Britain, than in cookery books. This situation might be changed if it had a French name (pâté chaud de viande hachée, préalablement marinée dans du vin de pays et des aromatiques), but it does not. In the USA the term was only recorded in print from 1899, in Britain not until 1939 (although liver loaf and ham loaf occurred earlier). The use of ‘loaf’ is particularly appropriate as most recipes include bread, usually in the form of soft breadcrumbs. Also, it is shaped like a loaf and may indeed be baked in a loaf tin or something similar. A worthy dish, which can embody the sort of rusticity which the word ‘peasant’ evokes, but can also exhibit the kind of refinement associated with bourgeoise cookery. Its range, however, does not extend into the realm of haute cuisine.