How do you think sloppy joes got their name? Are they named after a person? If so, who was Sloppy Joe and what did he do to deserve the honor of having this particular dish named after him? If you have ever wondered about this at some point in your life, wonder no more. I believe I stumbled across the answer this very day. Yes, I had an epiphany.
This morning I began a furious dash to complete a certain number of tasks, some of which were doing laundry, making bread, making dinner, working on my novel, etc. I completed a fourth revision of my second chapter before one o' clock, so I was feeling pretty good about my to-do list. Unfortunately, making bread and dinner and doing laundry ended up being chores which I did simultaneously. I decided to make hamburgers with homemade barbecue sauce for dinner; I figured that would be easier than anything else. When I finally got around to cooking the burgers, I realized too late that I should not have added the barbecue sauce beforehand because the meat was now soggy and the patties were falling apart in the skillet (That's what happens when you do so many things at once that you aren't thinking about any one thing clearly enough). Consequently, I threw the rest of the patties into my electric skillet, chopped them up, and dumped in the rest of my homemade barbecue sauce.
Yes, I made sloppy joes instead of burgers. They were just as good as the burgers would have been; they were simply in a different state than I had planned on. Not so patty-like as they might have otherwise been.
So, here is my epiphany. Sloppy Joe was more than likely a man who tried to multi-task and was unfortunately unable to make a burger that would stay in one piece. Consequently, he decided it would be easier to just throw all of the meat in the pot with the sauce and chop it up rather than try to make individual hamburgers. Thus, we now have that wonderful dish which graces our every potluck: sloppy joes.
But I have to ask: does he really deserve to have it named after him? He probably was not the first person to mess up hamburgers, and obviously he wasn't the last one, either. He was just one of many people who failed miserably in their futile attempts to have a fancy-schmancy hamburger bathed in glorious barbecue sauce. Personally, for those who believe in heaven, I happen to think that Sloppy Joe is probably up there cringing everytime someone makes that dish because it somehow commemorates his botched batch of barbecued burgers.
So I say, let's forget about Sloppy Joe's mess-up. He doesn't deserve to have his failure brought to our minds with such frequency. We all fail at some things--some more than others--but none of us want to be reminded of our shortcomings. I think from now on every pot of ground beef swimming in barbecue sauce, rather than bear the name of Sloppy Joe, should be named after the person who, let's face it, can't cut it as a burger-flipper. I will gladly take responsibility for my own failure in the kitchen today and we'll call this particular batch the name they rightfully deserve: sloppy Jeffs.
Sloppy Jeffs
3 lbs. ground beef
Sauce:
3 cups ketchup
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. lime juice
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 drops of liquid smoke
1/4 rum extract
2 Tbsp. sweet and spicy mustard
1/2 tsp. of each of the following spices: paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper, turmeric, celery salt, seasoning salt. thyme, ground rosemary, ginger, garlic
Whisk together the ingredients. Chop up the meat in the electric skillet at 250 degrees until browned. Add sauce. Let it simmer for 30 minutes. Wait, is that...am I...already done explaining how to make this? Sheesh, that's simple. Well, since I have now finished, I'll add a recipe for the salad I made tonight.
Jeff's Chef Salad
1 head of romaine lettuce, chopped
1/4 cup of chopped sweet red pepper
Half a can of sliced black olives
3 oz. of pepper jack cheese, grated
3 hard boiled eggs, sliced
Combine ingredients in a bowl. Add salt and pepper. Enjoy. I said, enjoy it. No, you will not talk to me that way. I don't care if you don't like red peppers. All I ask is that you enjoy it. Is that so hard? I didn't think so! So why can't you just enjoy it?! But in all seriousness, it's actually really good, so I hope you do enjoy it.
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, I remember. It's your pot of gloppy ground beef in a barbecue swamp, so put your own name on it and stop embarassing Sloppy Joe. I think it will be a greater homage to Sloppy Joe if we quit resurrecting his notorious memory at every church social we attend and take responsibility for the mess we ourselves have made, purposely or otherwise.
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