Meatloaf is a home dish: you mix chopped meat — usually beef, sometimes pork or a mix — with egg, breadcrumbs, onion, salt, and herbs, then shape it like a loaf of bread and bake it. When it comes out, you cut it in slices, the way you cut bread, except it is meat. It is strongly American comfort food: family ovens, diners, leftover sandwiches the next day. People often paint ketchup or a sweet tomato sauce on top before it bakes, so the outside turns sticky and dark. It is filling and a bit old-fashioned, not restaurant-fancy, though cooks do dress it up. Though actually, the “loaf” is only the shape. There is no bread sitting under the meat. In Britain you may see it written as two words, meat loaf, but the picture is the same: a baked block of mixed meat you slice.