The Great American Meatloaf Contest Cookbook: Great Meatloaf Recipes from Great Americans

A whole book about meatloaf? The coauthors, it is true, are experts: they run, their publisher tells us, the World Meatloaf Headquarters in Jamaica Plains, Mass., as well as an annual meatloaf contest. But really. It seems a little unlikely that most people would want to make meatloaf so many times--or would want to make so many kinds of it--that they'd fix on this single-subject cookbook with glee and desire. However, maybe they'd want to dream about meatloaf, given the stimulus, and if so, this is the right dreambook. That's not because there are a lot of glitzy photographs; there aren't. But there are plenty of unglitzy recipes: for upside down pineapple ham loaf; meatloaf Wellington; bloody mary meatloaf; meatloaf with salsa; meatloaf satay, which includes the traditional Thai peanut-based sauce on the side; and meatloaf stuffed with goat cheese and mushrooms. In other words, it's a sort of tacky world-survey, with surprises and satisfactions. And possibly a surfeit. That's the reader's choice. (Jan.)