Deli Meat Sloppy Joe

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Benjamin. I’m calling from San Diego.

Hey, Benjamin. Welcome.

Hey there. What’s going on?

I grew up in New Jersey, and I always referred to a sloppy joe as a sandwich that was not what everyone else referred to as a sloppy joe.

My sloppy joe was a, like, deli sandwich with, like, pastrami and coleslaw and other things, like a triangular, unusually like a rye.

And everywhere else I go in the country, they refer to Sloppy Joe as like this meat sandwich with ground beef and sauce and stuff.

And I did a little bit of research on the subject, and it seemed like it was really specific, like a couple of towns in North Jersey where I was from.

And I was wondering where that came from.

So a couple of towns in North Jersey, was it just like one deli chain or something?

No.

So my mother is from New Jersey.

And apparently she grew up near a deli, I think it was called Kabotchnix.

And when over there, she would order this Sloppy Joe tray, and my whole family would be really excited.

And it was a really fantastic sandwich.

And it was really funny.

I think in college, I had a girlfriend come over, and my whole family was talking about, like, oh, we’re getting Sloppy Joes.

We’re ordering Sloppy Joes from the deli.

It’s going to be so exciting.

And the whole time, she’s very confused.

She’s like, why are you getting all excited about, like, lunch food, like a ground beef sandwich?

And we’re like, oh, what are you talking about?

They’re delicious.

And she’s like, okay, you guys are getting really excited about what she perceived as, you know, was it a manwich or whatever.

-huh, right.

A ordinary food.

Yeah, crumbly, yeah.

That’s awesome.

That is great.

So what did she say when the food arrived?

I mean, did she, like, just, was her mind, did she walk out?

Was her mind blown?

Did she break up?

She was pretty quiet and quietly enjoyed the sandwich.

And it was, like, not until, like, two years later.

I have since married her.

And until like two years after the fact, she was like, yeah, you guys, I had no idea what you were talking about.

Sloppy Joe, sloppy Joe.

It’s not even that sloppy.

It’s not even that sloppy.

And a guy named Joe didn’t make it.

It’s funny because I feel like most New Jersey food that I think of that I miss about living on the East Coast of New Jersey,

They’re generally New York foods, like, you know, like a really good slice of pizza, a decent bagel.

I was shocked when I went other places, even a little bit further south than New York, and I would say Sloppy Joe.

And it was just, I always had to remind myself that people had no idea what I was talking about,

And they thought I was getting really excited about a crumbly, messy, and sleepy sandwich.

A truly sloppy sandwich.

Yep, yep.

And that’s completely consistent with what I see here in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

There’s even an entry from somebody who says,

When I was growing up in South Jersey, a Sloppy Joe was a ground beef sandwich.

Once I moved to Central Jersey, I found out that a Sloppy Joe here is deli sandwiches made from turkey, coleslaw, and Russian dressing.

That’s crazy.

Yeah.

But it’s nice that New Jersey can have its own thing.

Yeah.

Well, when I grew up in Kentucky, certainly Sloppy Joes were that, you know, they made your hamburger bun all wet and they were like falling over the sides.

It was ground beef and just, it was like a manwich, like you said.

There’s a method.

You have to protect the bread with other ingredients.

Like what?

We’ll talk about this off mic.

There’s a way to stop the soggy.

There’s a whole sandwich theory that we can get into.

Maybe we’ll start another podcast called Sandwich Theory.

I’m mostly vegetarian anyway.

That definitely is still a problem with the sloppy joe that I’m aware of, the soggy bread.

You’ve got to have it quick, get done before you’re very – even though you have three slices of bread in there,

You’re still – you’re running through with your fingers, and it’s not going to be too long before you got still the delicious,

Not as sloppy as the regular or other sloppy joe, still meat all over here.

Right, right.

Hence the sloppy joe.

That’s why you do it at home because you literally put it on the bread and not four seconds later you have a bite in your mouth.

Like there’s no distance between applying the meat to the bread and eating it.

I think a little bit of the sagginess is part of the magic.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

You know, there’s lots of other names for these kinds of sandwiches.

The meat version, not the New Jersey version, right?

All these different names for loose meat sandwiches.

Yeah, which is totally different.

And the names change if they have sauce or don’t have sauce.

We’ve got taverns and slush burgers and I don’t even know.

Spoonburgers.

Spoonburgers, barbecue.

Yeah.

Oh, dear.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Benjamin, for sharing.

I’m glad that you married the gal.

Anybody who’s willing to put up with your linguistic quirks is probably worth keeping.

Absolutely.

I really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, sure.

Take care.

Thanks.

Give us a call again sometime, all right?

Have a great day.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Oh, those calls always make me so hungry.

Seriously, right?

Even though I don’t eat meat.

Yeah.

I am literally leaving the studio and going to go get lunch, and there is no place in San Diego that’s going to serve the sandwich that he described.

Bring me a pint of coleslaw, will you?

877-929-9673 is the number to call to talk about language.

Or you can email us.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

And find us on Twitter at Wayword.