As any stand-up comedian will tell you, certain foods are funny. Not apples, not lamb chops, not string beans. But comedians always get a laugh at the mere mention of bananas, chickens, hot dogs, beans, bagels, and, of course, meatballs. Just say, “And what’s with meatballs?” People start to giggle. 

Meatballs, however well loved, have never had any real cachet. Once famously the most iconic of Italian-American cooking, they became an object of ridicule for the very same reason, with gourmets sniffing, “Well, they’re really not Italian, you know.” Well, they’re wrong.