The Sandwich With the Ground Beef and Stuff

While grocery shopping Sunday afternoon, Erin asked me to retrieve a can of Manwich. Only she didn't want Manwich, she wanted whatever Meijer calls their generic version -- something along the lines of Meijer Sloppy Joe Sauce. I gladly fulfilled her request, and then the trouble started.

On the way home, I mentioned that I really wasn't a huge Manwich fan. She immediately became annoyed with me, asking why I would eat something I didn't like for the past eight years. (And no, I didn't manage to fall into this obvious trap.) I told her that it wasn't that I HATED Sloppy Joe mix, but that I was used to my mom's version which tastes significantly differently from canned Sloppy Joe mix.

Now I realize that traditionally saying "But this isn't how my mom made this!?" will get you kicked in the Sloppy Joes, but I was careful to differentiate the two products. In fact, they are not even called the same thing. The "ground beef in some sort of tomato-based sauce served on a bun" that my mom served was always referred to as a "Spanish Hamburger," a term no doubt found offensive in some corner of the planet.

I have no idea the origin of the name "Spanish Hamburger." It sort of reeks of "Hey Billy Joe, this here Mex-ee-can restaurant will put that meat they stuff in the burrito on a bun for you instead, if you ask 'em real nice." And in much the same way that they don't speak Mexican south of the border, the Spanish Hamburger was born.

The biggest difference for me is that my mom's recipe included cheese, which covers a multitude of sins. In our family, it made up for the fact that the ground meat being used was probably 99.99999999% fat free and scorched instantly upon hitting a frying pan.

Next time we see my mom, I plan to discreetly ask her for her recipe. And then perhaps I'll cook up some Spanish Hamburgers on my own. Perhaps me doing the cooking will offset the anger generated by fixing a meal because "I like my mom's better"...)