• paultimate14@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Can you even call it meat loaf without bread crumbs or some other filler?

    As someone who grew up poor, I thought the whole point of meatloaf was to add cheap filler to ground meat to make it “go” further.

    • cogman@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Exactly the point.

      Bread crumbs, carrots, onions, even celery. All filler elements to make the meatloaf taste better and go further.

      It’s a WW2 meal designed to make rationed meat go further.

    • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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      6 days ago

      We used corn flakes, 3 eggs (had chickens, have them now too), Worcestershire, onions, and maybe celery, mixing it by hand was good fun to me for some reason. As an adult when I started growing mushrooms, I added a bunch from a flush that produced way too many to use and was starting to go bad, and omg I love it that way now! (Not necessarily mushrooms on the edge of going bad, but is a good way to use a lot up and freeze for later meals!)

      • Soulg@ani.social
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        6 days ago

        That’s more or less what meat loaf is, eat it with some greens and it’s a decent cheap meal that’s pretty easy and quick to make; throw shit into a big bowl and hand mix (or it was before Trump ruined the price of beef)

    • nednobbins@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      It’s also there so the proteins from the meat don’t all bind together and turn your meatloaf into a meatbrick.

    • EchoCranium@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      My mom (and consequently, so do I now) would use quick oats instead of bread crumbs. Add in an egg, onion, green pepper, maybe celery. Now it’s sounding really good, haven’t made this in a while, thinking I’ll have to do that this weekend.