Meat Loaf

Meat loaf reigns in the world of square meals. Whatever ground meat it’s made of – all beef, beef & pork, beef & pork & veal, even poultry – it is a reassuring dish served on a plate along with mashed potatoes and gravy and a green vegetable or corn niblets. Some meat loaf issues: Is it draped with bacon, the fat of which saturates the meat loaf as it bakes? Does it bake with a frosting of ketchup, marinara, barbecue sauce, or honey-mustard? Is the finished loaf topped with mashed potatoes, then re-baked to become a scaled-down cottage pie? Meat loaf is a fine candidate for sandwiches – just a slice between bread or turbocharged with jalapeno ketchup. In Omaha at a restaurant called Wheatfields, the menu lists a meat loaf sundae! That’s a scoop of mashed potatoes resembling ice cream atop a slab of meat loaf (a brownie?), topped with gravy and barbecue sauce (syrup), corn niblets (nuts), and a little red tomato (maraschino cherry).