When you’re hungry and looking for food that will satisfy you every time, you can’t go wrong with a meatball sub. Delicious beef and pork meatballs on fresh bread covered with marinara…you just can’t beat it. We know that meatballs are an essential part of Italian-American cuisine, but—like all Italian food—there’s a lot more to them than that.
Let’s dig in to these fun food facts about meatballs!
Sometimes they’re tiny.
You’re probably familiar with the smaller Swedish meatballs, but there are tiny Italian meatballs, too! In Italy, meatballs are called polpette and are typically about the size of a golf ball, not unlike their Swedish counterparts. However, in some regions, the meatballs are even smaller. If you go to the province of Teramo in the Abruzzo region of Italy you’ll find polpettine, which are meatballs the size of marbles!
Nearly every country has its own take.
We all know that Sweden has meatballs (thanks, Ikea), too, but they’re not the only ones! Countries around the world have some version of meatballs as part of their cuisine. In Europe, most all of them use beef or pork and are either baked or fried. Germany, however, makes a variation called Könisberger Klopse, which contains anchovies or salted herrings!
Immigrants turned them into the food we know today.
Like nearly all Italian food that we eat in the United States, the meatballs we are familiar with are what the immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries made. When the Italian immigrants came to America, they were delighted to find that meat was much easier to come by—and far less expensive. As a result, they began to incorporate more meat into their traditional recipes. For meatballs, this meant that they were much bigger than back in Italy. As the Italians began to mingle with other immigrant populations, they also incorporated their foods into their dishes. French baguettes were easy to find, so they became an obvious choice for sandwiches, and the meatball sub was born!
Enjoy a meatball sub and other delicious food from Nadeau’s!
Have we made you hungry? Then come to Nadeau’s Subs! Grab a meatball sub or try one of your famous steak tip subs. We have six locations, so check out which one is closest to you and get eating! You can even order online!
