Date:  Tue, 7 Mar 1995 09:03:03 -0800

From:  Peter McGraw <pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU>

Subject: Loose meats, etc.



May I restore a thread that I hoped might be starting but seems to have

been dropped?



So far everyone seems to agree that "sloppy Joe" refers to a sandwich

made with ground beef in a chili-like sauce. (In my experience, always

between hamburger buns.) This is also what I have found associated with

the word everywhere east of the Mississippi.



When I was growing up, however, there was a restaurant in Salem, Oregon,

that called itself "Oregon's Home of Sloppy Joe," whose specialty was a

very large sandwich made with many layers of thinly sliced ham and Swiss

cheese on rye, I think with thousand island dressing.



I don't remember running across any sandwich called a "sloppy Joe"

anywhere else in Oregon or in the West, for that matter, though I wasn't

particularly looking for one. Has anybody else run into other regional

variations on this item (if indeed that's what this was)?



Peter McGraw

Linfield College

McMinnville, OR