It is the spices that enliven minced meat and breadcrumbs into something heavenly — Swedish meatballs. (Joshua Tibbetts)

This month I’m going to tackle a comfort food that has been the unfortunate subject of good press. The humble meatball. So many cultures have a meatball tucked away in there somewhere. For good reason. There’s always a bit of scraps to use up, that don’t quite fill a spoon. For those little bits and pieces, most food traditions have come up with the same approach: chop or grind up all the little loose bits, then bind them together into something one can sink their teeth into.

You either end up with a loaf or a meatball. Our modern American references tend to make us think either of Italian meatballs or diner-style meatloaf. The basic idea and techniques are the same. How it fits on the plate and how it fits into a meal are quite different.

Italian and Chinese meatballs are meant to be tucked into a nest of noodles. A meatloaf, terrine or Salisbury steak is meant to behave like an intact slab of meat. Both versions tend to use binders and extenders, like bread or crumbs. The extenders draw the flavor out over more bites. They turn a few scraps of meat into a drawn out feast.

Meatballs with pasta, American meatloaf and hamburgers absolutely have dominated our collective sense of what to expect from this kind of food. Gyros pokes it’s head up every once in a while, as does the Mexican variation on gyros: al pastor taco meat.

And then we have Swedish meatballs. There’s definitely a fad for Swedish meatballs, pushed in no small part by a certain international…