My friend Chris Diebel has unearthed a story about Des Moines society four decades ago that’s worth retelling, if only because it puts the words meatloaf and caviar in the same sentence. 

Diebel is managing director of LPCA Public Strategies, a marketing/public policy firm. He wasn’t born until 1981, but if he’d been here in the 1970s he’d probably have found a way to hang out with one of the fun groups of that era. 

The group I’m talking about included Des Moines Register publisher David Kruidenier and his wife Elizabeth, along with Register Editor Kenneth Mac Donald and his wife Helen, who lived in Southern Hills directly across from the Kruideniers. Other members were real estate lawyer Bill Wimer and his wife Connie, who was just launching her career as a media entrepreneur, Arnold and Caroline Levine, who owned a steel fabrication business, and Phil and Pat Brown. Phil’s family had owned the Brown Hotel, and he was president of Inter State Assurance. Also Edward and Lucille Burchette. Edward grew up in Bloomfield and married into two banking families. A decade later he acquired unwanted fame when Bloomfield’s uninsured Exchange Bank failed. 

During the mid-1970s, the 12 friends were always looking for new ways to have fun. 

Only two, Caroline Levine and Connie Wimer, are alive today, and neither is sure who came up with idea of holding a meatloaf contest. 

“A few of us got together and said: ‘Let’s have a cooking contest,’” Wimer said. 

Levine believes the idea might have come from Pat Brown. “She was so creative and had more fun than anyone I ever knew,” Levine said.

Wimer recalled someone objecting that meatloaf was so ordinary, but others said that was the point.

In fact, the contest was anything but ordinary.

Bill Wimer, who was a corporate lawyer, drafted bylaws and rules: The meatloaf had to be prepared in an aluminum foil pan purchased at a Dahls grocery store.

A sculptor was commissioned to create a traveling trophy – a wooden box and metal topping – designed to look like a meatloaf.

An entire weekend was reserved for the annual “meatoffs,” which began on Friday evening with cocktails followed by an elegant meal prepared by the Burchettes’ chef.

Meatloaf was not on the Friday menu but was the main attraction at a second gathering the following noon at the Brown home on the edge of town.   

Numbered paddles were placed in the meatloaves, which were tasted by all the couples, and Anna Meredith, widow of E.T. Meredith Jr. On one memorable occasion, Anna Meredith arrived by helicopter. 

Professional foodies, including Josef Mossman, who was the Des Moines Tribune’s Grumpy Gourmet columnist, judged the entries.

Saturday evening, a second dinner party was held at a different home. Again, no meatloaf was served. But then on Sunday at noon, the group reconvened at the Browns to judge the leftover cold meatloaf. 

Prizes were awarded based on the professional judges’ opinions for the best hot meatloaf and the best cold meatloaf. A third award was presented to the crowd favorite. 

Wimer’s entry one year consisted of a mixture of spices, beef, lamb and pork. Between the meat was a layer of spinach, a layer of mushrooms and a layer of cheese. The entire affair was topped with a latticed puff pastry. 

“It was gorgeous,” Wimer said.

Levine’s most memorable entry featured three hard-boiled eggs in the middle of two pounds of seasoned ground beef frosted with sour cream and a sprinkling of capers and shredded slices of spring onions. Levine also rinsed a portion of black caviar, so it wasn’t too runny, and lathered it on the top of the meatloaf.

How did it taste?

“It was more of a joke than fine cuisine,” she laughed.