The dish was displayed under a glass bell by Australian cultured meat company Vow at the NEMO Science Museum in the Dutch capital.
But the pachydermic polpette is not yet ready to be eaten: the thousand-year-old protein still needs to pass safety tests before it can be devoured by modern humans.
"We chose woolly mammoth meat because it is a symbol of loss, wiped out by previous climate change," Tim Noakesmith, co-founder of Vow, told AFP.
"We face a similar fate if we don't do things differently, like changing practices such as large-scale farming and the way we eat," he adds.
Grown over several weeks, the meat was made by scientists who first identified the DNA sequence of mammoth myoglobin, a protein that gives meat its flavor.
Filling some gaps in the mammoth myoglobin sequence using genes from the African elephant, the mammoth's closest living relative, it was then inserted into sheep cells using an electrical charge.
"I'm not going to eat it right now because we haven't seen this protein in 4,000 years," says Ernst Wolvetang of the Australian Institute of Bioengineering at the University of Queensland, who collaborated with Vow.
"But after the safety tests, I'd be really curious to see what it looks like," he adds.
Global meat consumption has nearly doubled since the early 1960s, according to figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
Livestock accounts for about 14.5% of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, according to FAO.
Meat consumption is expected to increase by more than 70% by 2050, and scientists are increasingly turning to alternatives such as plant-based meats and lab-grown meat.
Sydney-based startup Noakesmith's Vow, which calls itself a "failed vegan," is not about stopping people from eating meat, but about "giving them something better."
"We chose to make a mammoth meatball to draw attention to the fact that the future of food can be better and more sustainable," he says.
© 2023 AFP