Board 8 > Can it be considered a Sloppy Joe without the bun?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The sandwich analogy works just fine. A sandwich is not longer a sandwich if you remove the bread.
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In fact really the bread in that spaghetti analogy is actually the meat sauce when you think about it, despite intuition being "duh meat sauce: meat sauce"

Spaghetti is the noodle and is the defining characteristic of spaghetti as a dish. You can have it without a sauce of any sort. It's still spaghetti. It being traditionally served with a tomato based sauce of some sort doesn't mean you can't have it without.

Similarly the defining characteristic of a Sloppy Joe is the topping which you won't find anywhere else. If you're saying "it's just chili" I suspect the Sloppy Joes you typically eat are bootleg because it's definitely distinct from any type of canned chili you'll find-- it's got a slight sweetness to it, mostly, but yeah it's distinctive in a few ways that I haven't seen in canned chili that doesn't specifically market itself as Sloppy Joe mix.

Which is to say... *removes shirt to reveal another shirt that has a bun with an x over it*
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Waluigi1 posted...

A sandwich is not longer a sandwich if you remove the bread.

A sandwich is defined by the fact that it's an edible container that has more edible ingredients stuffed in it, not the bread specifically.

Sandwich can be a sandwich without bread if you preserve the overall structure with other ingredients. Case in point an Ice Cream sandwich.
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Like the reason a BLT tossed in a bowl is no longer a BLT but a salad is because BLT is shorthand for Bacon Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich.

If you had some idiots on like epic meal time or something replace the bread with solid sheets of bacon and it held structure it'd still rightly be called a BLT.

This is of course at odds with my thoughts on pizzas earlier but I was just saying I think pizzas have been abused and we've got some wacky things passing for pizzas these days. I do understand what the definition of a pizza is and why you can't just throw crust meat sauce and cheese mixed in a bowl and call it a day, but I'd call that casserole closer to the soul of a pizza than some of these things let me tell ya.

Anyway
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You're just proving my point. If you sub out the bread in a sandwich then whatever, it's still a weird sandwich of some sort. But we're talking about deleting the bread in the sloppy joe completely, which makes it just a bowl of meat sauce.
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I'm saying the defining characteristic of the Sloppy Joe is the specific type of meat sauce used in it. The bun is just a typical delivery method.

A sandwich is a sandwich because of the structure, specifically. It's like a pie. You can have a ton of types of pies, not all needing the same kind of crust or filling, but they all need to be in the same kind of overall structure.

Sloppy Joe is not structure based naming convention so the bun is not important. It's more like spaghetti, a dish which is named after the noodle. As long as you have that noodle as your overwhelmingly primary ingredient you can call it spaghetti no matter what sauce or cheese or whatever you cover or garnish it with. Similarly Sloppy Joe is the specific sauce which is not tomato sauce nor chili sauce like people in the topic have been dumbing it down to, but its own thing.
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Lopen posted...

I'm saying the defining characteristic of the Sloppy Joe is the specific type of meat sauce used in it. The bun is just a typical delivery method.

Yeah, but this is factually wrong.

*That's* the issue.

A sloppy joe is a sandwich with your specific meat sauce.
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I'll concede it's typically in sandwich form but because it's a specific sauce used for that dish I would argue it doesn't need to be to be identifiable as a sloppy joe

Like if someone is blinded, given a spoonful of the Sloppy Joe sauce they'll identify it as Sloppy Joe. That's enough to make the distinctive element the sauce not the sandwich nature. Like bologna is typically served on sandwiches too but you'd never argue bologna must be served on a sandwich to be bologna
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No, they'd probably specify it tastes like the meat of a sloppy joe, or sloppy joe meat.
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You're right. They'd also say this tastes like the filling of a bologna sandwich my mistake
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You're still missing the key part Lopen.

A sloppy joe is a sandwich in the same way that a private in the US army is a soldier.

The key identifier is that he shoots people in a US army uniform.

If you take him out of the uniform, he still shoots people and he's a WHOLE DIFFERENT THING.

If you take sloppy joe meat out of the bread, it's a WHOLE DIFFERENT THING.

Even if - the key defining part, flavoured meat and/or american who shoots people is the same, their wrapper matters.
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Leon you aren't wrong often but this is one of those times

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Sloppy Joe's without the bread is definitely not a whole different thing. You still get the distinct flavor, which is probably why you're eating it in the first place. You're not eating it for the bread or for the potential for it to fall out of the bun and dump out all over your lap.
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Setting aside the argument about the name this is just an offensive eating habit in general. Literally worse than eating pizza with a fork.

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Also the taste of pie filling is unique and probably the reason you are eating the pie, but you cant say you actually ate a pie if you just ate a bowl of the filling.

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redrocket posted...

Also the taste of pie filling is unique and probably the reason you are eating the pie, but you cant say you actually ate a pie if you just ate a bowl of the filling.

This sounds like a pretty solid idea imhotbqh

I would argue there are things that need the bread. Peanut butter and jelly needs the bread (unless you just like to suck it out of that bottle that combines the two, in which case you are even weirder than I am). Grilled cheese needs the bread. I don't think a Sloppy Joe needs the bread.
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Bossman_Coolguy posted...

no its just ground beef with tomato sauce dude

So it's basically really crappy chili if it's in bowl

I should say maybe add in some tostitos and it wouldn't be bad?

LeonhartFour posted...

This sounds like a pretty solid idea imhotbqh

I would argue there are things that need the bread. Peanut butter and jelly needs the bread (unless you just like to suck it out of that bottle that combines the two, in which case you are even weirder than I am). Grilled cheese needs the bread. I don't think a Sloppy Joe needs the bread.

you can argue anything, but a sloppy joe is literally a sandwich. The filling is just sloppy joe meat or sloppy joe sauce.

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Yeah, sounds like we're mostly in agreement.

"A sloppy Joe" is a sandwich with what you might call "sloppy Joe slop" in the middle

But you wouldn't call some quantity of slop "a sloppy Joe", you'd call it "some sloppy joe X"

Language is funny
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I'm still hearing Sloppy Joe
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Lopen posted...

I'm saying the defining characteristic of the Sloppy Joe is the specific type of meat sauce used in it. The bun is just a typical delivery method.

It's not a specific sauce though because it's also used to make coneys. If you put Sloppy Joe sauce on a hot dog, it just became "coney sauce" or "hot dog sauce."

Lopen posted...

Like the reason a BLT tossed in a bowl is no longer a BLT but a salad is because BLT is shorthand for Bacon Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich.

And Sloppy Joe is short for "Sloppy Joe Sandwich"

But anyhoo, the "the sloppy joe sauce is the spaghetti" analogy doesn't work, since you don't say "I'll have some spaghettis" like you do "I'll have some Sloppy Joes." "Sloppy Joe" is singular, referring to a singular object (the sandwich), not a group of individual objects. When you order a Sloppy Joe anywhere, you say "I'd like a Sloppy Joe." Because "Sloppy Joe" is specifically referring to the sandwich, not just the meat.

You can argue that eating a bowl of it is eating "sloppy joe sauce," but you aren't actually eating a sloppy joe.
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HashtagSEP posted...

It's not a specific sauce though because it's also used to make coneys.

Never had a coney with sloppy Joe instead of chili. Sounds gross
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Lopen posted...

HashtagSEP posted...

It's not a specific sauce though because it's also used to make coneys.

Never had a coney with sloppy Joe instead of chili. Sounds gross

Those are chili dogs.

Coneys use the same or very similar sauce to Sloppy Joes.

Chili dogs will often have beans in the sauce, coneys do not, it's just the meat sauce/sloppy joe sauce.
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Every coney I've had is a chili dog with cheese yes
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Lopen posted...

Every coney I've had is a chili dog with cheese yes

Well then you haven't actually been eating real coneys I'm sorry
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Take it up with Sonic bro
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Point is that type of sauce changes name depending on what it's on

Is it just on a hamburger bun? It's sloppy joe sauce.
Is it on a hot dog? It's coney sauce.

Therefore the sauce is not the important part of the naming.

It's "Sloppy Joe (Sandwich)"
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I dunno man given some people were calling sloppy joe sauce chili sauce and some were calling it tomato sauce I'm gonna have to compare the two dishes to be sure
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I guarantee you that any place that serves sloppy joes and coneys is just scooping the stuff out of the same place

Though how chili-like or tomato sauce-like it is will obviously differ by who makes it
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I haven't had a sloppy joe in like, more than a decade and I've never wanted one more than right now, after reading this topic several times in the past day
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Leonhart4 posted...

I'm still hearing Sloppy Joe

that's just a foible of language

"train" as in the thing that runs on tracks sounds exactly the same as "train" as in practice, but they're still different things
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You know what's really good?

Sloppy joes with ground turkey and a nice slaw on top
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it is a specific meat sauce for sloppy joes, true, but i mean, it's still just a meat sauce you can use for other things. i've had extra leftover that i've used with other stuff tons of times. it's not really that special.
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sloppy joe sauce is also good on fries
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If I was eating it without a bun, I'd just call it sloppy joe meat

I think the typical reference to a "sloppy joe" is a shortened version of the more proper name which would be a "sloppy joe sandwich"

Like how if you order a "sub", you actually ordered a "submarine sandwich"

So really...a "sloppy joe sandwich" is just a sandwich with sloppy joe [meat/sauce] as the primary ingredient

So you can eat sloppy joes without it being a sandwich

The grammar is just awkward because most foods don't have proper nouns as part of the name

The meat/sauce isn't what's called "sloppy joe," though.

Like, in your example, when you order a sub, you're not ordering "a sandwich with sub as the primary ingredient"

The name is for the whole package. That's how it was conceived.

A "Sloppy Joe" is the sandwich itself. Yeah, we call the meat/sauce "sloppy joe meat/sauce," but that's just because it's easiest to describe it that way. It's the meat/sauce from a sloppy joe (sandwich).
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HashtagSEP posted...

A "Sloppy Joe" is the sandwich itself. Yeah, we call the meat/sauce "sloppy joe meat/sauce," but that's just because it's easiest to describe it that way. It's the meat/sauce from a sloppy joe (sandwich).

Merriam-Webster begs to differ...!

1. often capitalized S&J: a loose-fitting sweater especially for girls

oh wait

2: ground beef cooked in a thick spicy sauce and usually served on a bun
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Isn't the first time Merriam-Webster has been wrong!

Marilyn Brown, Director of the Consumer Test Kitchen at H.J. Heinz in Pittsburgh, says their research at the Carnegie Library suggests that the sloppy joe's origins lie with the "loose meat sandwiches" sold in Sioux City, Iowa, in the 1930s and were the creation of a cook named Joe.[9]

References to sloppy joes as sandwiches begin by the 1940s. One example from Ohio is a 1944 Coshocton Tribune ad under the heading "'Good Things to Eat' says 'Sloppy Joes' 10c Originated in Cuba You'll ask for more The Hamburg Shop" and elsewhere on the same page, "Hap is introducing that new sandwich at The Hamburg Shop Sloppy Joes 10c"

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Whether it's the primary ingredient or some random name that's serving as shorthand reference to the thing is beside the point.

My point is that the dish we're talking about isn't a "sloppy joe". It's a "sloppy joe sandwich". We just leave off "sandwich" because it's convenient.

turbopuns3 posted...

Whether it's the primary ingredient or some random name that's serving as shorthand reference to the thing is beside the point.

My point is that the dish we're talking about isn't a "sloppy joe". It's a "sloppy joe sandwich". We just leave off "sandwich" because it's convenient.

Right. That's the whole point, though.

You can't just go order "Sloppy Joe" like you would "Spaghetti." It's just not served that way. You can order "a Sloppy Joe" and you get the sandwich. "Sloppy Joe" and "Sloppy Joe Sandwich" aren't two different things. If you go to anywhere that serves Sloppy Joes and say "I'll take Sloppy Joe," they're not going to ask if you mean the sandwich, they're just going to give you the sandwich, or ask you how many.
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That's just because a sandwich is the most common way it's served.

Like if I order spaghetti you don't ask if I want it between two pieces of bread. Because it's not usually eaten that way so why ask.

Basically, you can say "I'm making Sloppy Joe sauce/meat," and say "I'm eating Sloppy Joe sauce/meat" if you're eating it out of a bowl

But you aren't actually eating a Sloppy Joe. Just like if you are eating pepperoni and cheese, you're not having a pizza. If you eat melted cheese, you're not having a grilled cheese.

So while it doesn't just become some other thing, you're only eating part of it, so it's hard to argue it's the same thing.
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Well, I've said all I can say. We just disagree lol

HashtagSEP posted...

Basically, you can say "I'm making Sloppy Joe sauce/meat," and say "I'm eating Sloppy Joe sauce/meat" if you're eating it out of a bowl

But you aren't actually eating a Sloppy Joe. Just like if you are eating pepperoni and cheese, you're not having a pizza. If you eat melted cheese, you're not having a grilled cheese.

So while it doesn't just become some other thing, you're only eating part of it, so it's hard to argue it's the same thing.

But if you eat a burger without the bun, you're still eating a burger.

(I'm not disagreeing with you I just think it's weird how "sloppy joe" is the sandwich and "burger" is, well, the burger)
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I'm not going to start calling it Sloppy Joe meat any more than you're going to start calling it Sloppy Joe sandwich
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Gatarix posted...

HashtagSEP posted...

Basically, you can say "I'm making Sloppy Joe sauce/meat," and say "I'm eating Sloppy Joe sauce/meat" if you're eating it out of a bowl

But you aren't actually eating a Sloppy Joe. Just like if you are eating pepperoni and cheese, you're not having a pizza. If you eat melted cheese, you're not having a grilled cheese.

So while it doesn't just become some other thing, you're only eating part of it, so it's hard to argue it's the same thing.

But if you eat a burger without the bun, you're still eating a burger.

(I'm not disagreeing with you I just think it's weird how "sloppy joe" is the sandwich and "burger" is, well, the burger)

To be fair, that's because the name never changes between "a hamburger" and "hamburger."

Though if you're just eating a patty by itself, you typically wouldn't tell people "Oh, I'm eating a hamburger." You'd say something like "I'm eating a hamburger patty." It's natural to come up with a way to describe it since you know people will picture it wrong otherwise.

Thus, saying "I ate a sloppy joe" if you just ate the meat out of a bowl isn't really correct, since it's not actually conveying what you ate.
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LeonhartFour posted...

I'm not going to start calling it Sloppy Joe meat any more than you're going to start calling it Sloppy Joe sandwich

Because if I call up people and ask them to come over for sloppy joes, they're going to come over to my house expecting the sandwich automatically

Whereas apparently they're going to show up at your house and be served bowls of meat

False advertising!
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I mean if I came over to your house because you invited me for Sloppy Joe's I'd tell you to have a bowl ready

I'm not saying if I make Sloppy Joe's everyone has to eat it the way I make it!
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Punnyz posted...

I haven't had a sloppy joe in like, more than a decade and I've never wanted one more than right now, after reading this topic several times in the past day

Same. It's been maybe even 2 decades for me.
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