Sloppy Joe
My other half grew up in Iowa. I don’t hold this against him. Well, not often. For me, growing up in Australia, a sloppy joe was an item of clothing. So when he announced the first time that he was going to make sloppy joes, I looked at him blankly. He finally explained what they are, and I thought they sounded foul. Time passed though, and I tried one. “Actually” I said “That’s not too bad” and so a household weekend staple food item was born.
This would look familiar to most of you. It still seems like a weird idea to me. I added some shredded Mexican style cheese and a bunch of Tabasco, and shoved it all in the toastie maker. As you do.
Sloppy by name, sloppy by nature. We’ll usually have it with pickle spears and some chips, but none of us could be buggered to do that tonight. Too tired.
I’m a mother of two boys. I work selling organic produce to gullible locals, and in my spare time I run as far as I can. Oh, and I live in Australia, married to a US citizen.
Being from Iowa, I’m surprised he didn’t refer to it as a “Maid-Rite” which is something that I’ve only seen in Iowa and have been assured is not the same thing as a Sloppy Joe, much as they look and taste very similar.
Generally, a sloppy joe is loose meat with a (tomato-based) sauce while a Maid Rite is simply lightly-seasoned loose meat. Crit’s sandwich doesn’t seem as saucy as I expect a sloppy joe to be but the meat does seem to be bound together much more than I’d expect from a Maid Rite, so sloppy joe it is.
We had 2 Maid Rite restaurants in my town growing up. I was never a fan, but we did eat hell of sloppy joes at home, and my family still does them from time to time. Nice post, Crit!
Josh, this was a sloppy Joe, but not as sloppy as usual. We were running low on the pasta sauce in a jar that he uses. He’s brought cans of Manwich back with him in the past, but found that the pasta sauce is an acceptable sub.
He’s made Maid Rites in the past too, but found that sloppy joes go down better with the boys. And yes, very different beasts. Actually, speaking of beasts, we used to eat a lot more kangaroo until we found a source of cheap organic beef. I’m gonna get him to make sloppy roos next time.