Spaghetti And Meatballs Is An American Dish, Not Italian

Meatballs are probably a gift from the heavens—there are early recipes for meatballs found in ancient Chinese, Arabic, and Roman texts—and every culture seems to have its own version!

Beef, pork, and veal are the most popular, but they can be made with chicken, fish, or even vegan. Let’s all rejoice on March 9 in honor of National Meatball Day.

• 221 BC – A record of the earliest recipe for meatballs comes from China.
• 1st Century AD – In “Apicius,” a collection of Roman recipes, the meatball is featured several times.
• 25 AD – No one knows for sure where the first meatball came from, however, recipes for meatballs from the time of the Romans exist as evidenced in an ancient recipe book written by Marcus Gavius Apicus (aka Apicius), who was born in 25 AD. His book is called “De re coquinaria libri decem (Cuisine in Ten Books)”. Book II is devoted to “minces”, or mixtures of meat and other ingredients.
• 18th Century – Swedish meatballs are not from Sweden. They are based on a recipe King Charles XII brought home from Turkey in the early 18th century.
• 1880 – Italian immigrants introduce spaghetti and meatballs to Americans.
• 1889 – The first American meatball recipe appears in “Aunt Babette’s Cook Book”
• 20th Century – The meatball sandwich, an Italian-American fusion, is created.
• 1985 – The IKEA meatball was born when founder Ingvar Kamprad became afraid shoppers were feeling hungry during their visits to IKEA
• 2011 – The Wall Street Journal reported that IKEA’s Food division earns $2 billion in annual revenue. That same year, the company sold a staggering 150 million meatballs!
  • 2.7 million meatballs are eaten daily in IKEA’s 340 worldwide stores. That’s a whopping 1 billion meatballs a year.
• 2015 – IKEA is now making Chicken meatballs…AND Vegetarian meatballs.
• 2017 – The largest meatball, weighing over 1,100 pounds, was made in South Carolina in 2017. It set a Guinness World Record!
• 2018 – Salmon balls are sold at IKEA
• 2020 – HUVUDROLL is now available at IKEA. It is plant-based.
• 2024 – ‘Raspberry Chipotle Turkey Meatballs with roasted Brussels Sprouts‘ is the most popular recipe for February 2024
• Ancient Rome can add a claim to meatballs as there is a surviving cookbook that holds a variety of recipes with balls of meat.
• Spaghetti and meatballs is an American dish, not Italian.
• The Italian word for meatball is polpette. Many countries around the world have their take, like the Vietnamese and banh mi or the  Middle East.
• Social conversations about Meatballs have increased by 26.09% over the past year
• 16.59% (216 154) restaurants offer Meatballs on their menus
• The fastest rising consumer need for Meatballs is Meal Prep
• The dominant diet for Meatballs is Vegan
• There are 180,200 restaurants currently offering Meatballs on their menu
• Every Culture Has a Meatball.  Swedish köttbullar,  Spanish albondigas,  Dutch bitterballen, Greek keftedes, South African skilpedjies, and from India through the Middle East, kofta.
• Japan makes a hamburger steak, called hanbâgu, which is a larger, flatter, meatball.
• Grecian meatballs are fried and usually include finely diced onion and mint leaves within the meat.
• Indonesian meatballs are served in a bowl, with noodles, beancurd, eggs, and possibly fried meat to boot.
• In Albania, meatballs often come as a mixture of feta cheese and meat.
• Polish meatballs (golabki) are huge, about the size of large oranges, and include rice. They are served in steamed cabbage leaves, usually in a tomato sauce.
• Turkey boasts over 80 types of meatballs, each type made just a bit differently according to its region of origin.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Days of the Year

Pasta Pantry

Center of the Plate

National Today 

Taste of Home

IKEA

Tastewise