The History of the Meatball

Meatballs are delicious. They are great on spaghetti, they are great with other kinds of pasta, and they are great all by themselves. When you head out to your Frankfort,IL restaurant, you know there will be some scrumptious meatballs waiting for you there. But do you know the history of the meatball?

Where it all began

Well, if you don't, don't feel too bad. The actual origin of the meatball is largely unknown. What is known is that meatballs appeared independently in multiple cultures across the globe between the second and ninth centuries CE. This is why you will find variants on the meatball in almost every country in the world, each made a bit differently but all including some form of ground/shredded meat, spices, and other viticulture ingredients. It's likely that this versatile and delicious food form came about either to make scarce meat feed more mouths by mixing it with additional ingredients, keeping tough meat soft and easy to eat over time, to make use of extra scraps of meat so that no portion of an animal or cut of meat got wasted, or some combination of all three.

Popularization in the USA

The history of the meatball's popularization in the USA can mostly be traced to Italian immigrants near the end of the 19th century. These immigrants found that, unlike in the old country, vegetables were expensive and meat was cheap. Not only did this allow them to make more meatballs, it also allowed them to make the meatballs larger than they were before. These large meatballs appealed to American diners, and thus the Italian meatball with its garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and Italian seasonings became a popular American staple. Incidentally, it was these Italian immigrants that also popularized pasta and tomato sauce, creating perhaps the most popular Italian dish that did not originate in Italy itself: spaghetti and meatballs.