Sometimes there's a disconnect between the proclamations of food gurus and what regular folks eat. Not so in the case of meatballs. Once labeled "dish of the year" by Bon Appetit magazine, meatballs are welcome everywhere.

They were the unexpected star of the buffet table at a holiday party I attended with 40 other guys. There sat six -- six! -- casseroles filled with meatballs, most of which were ground beef in tomato sauce. And nearly every ball was gone by the end of the night.

"Meatballs are the ultimate cure-all for anything that ails you," Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow write in "The Meatball Shop Cookbook" (Ballantine, $28). Though these New York City restaurateurs are thinking "hangover, breakup, lack of sleep, even a crying baby," you should think meatballs for your Super Bowl XLVI feast.

Footballs and meatballs just seem to go together -- especially around a widescreen TV and plenty of cold beer. You can, of course, serve up that traditional ground beef meatball and float it in a pool of tomato sauce. Or jazz up your game plan by experimenting with meats, flavors and presentations.

Nearly every culture has a meatball, as Rick Rodgers makes clear in his new cookbook, "I Love Meatballs!" (Andrews McMeel, $19.99). His 55 recipes range from Tuscan olive-stuffed rounds to Thai pork and shrimp balls to a Texas meatball chili soup.

"Every cuisine has them because they're economical and easy to make," says Rodgers. "They also just taste great. You can make them ahead, warm them up, and they just get better."

So offer a variety of meatballs. Here we serve up two recipes for a game-day buffet. Serve as they are, or with suggested accompaniments.