A sandwich by any other name would taste as good.
Names are important. For better or worse, names do a lot of heavy-lifting when it comes to first impressions. Just think of your reaction when you hear the names Abcd, X Æ A-12, Kimyonce, or Popcorn. Those are all real names given to real human babies by (mostly) real human parents. Those kids are definitely going to get weird looks and misspelled names on their Starbucks cups.
And it’s not just human names. Bad names (titles) happen to movies, too. We Bought A Zoo comes to mind. Matt Damon’s in it, so it can’t be that bad. But I’ve never seen the movie since it feels like the entire plot is the title. Or The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain. Good luck fitting that on a marquee. Or Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! There is a whole lot of “Oh, I don’t need to see this movie,” going on in that title.
Even food can have bad names, like Spam, Head Cheese and Spotted Dick. Even if they’re delicious, they don’t exactly jump off the menu as being a treat for your tastebuds. Which brings me to this week’s sandwich: The Loose Meat Sandwich.
Representing Iowa, the list describes it as, “Flavorful ground beef topped with sauteed onions, paprika, and cheese.” My first reaction was — appropriately, I think — “Ew. That’s a horrible name for a sandwich.” After doing a little research, it seemed like a cross between a sloppy joe and a hamburger, which made me feel a little better about it.
Still…loose meat? Who was in charge of naming this? Sloth from the Goonies? Because he had a pretty limited vocabulary, so I’ll allow it. But if it was ANYONE ELSE, their naming privileges should be revoked for the rest of their life.
Name notwithstanding, the sandwich needed to be made. So we found some recipes and got to work. I use “work” very loosely because it was a ridiculously easy sandwich to make. It was probably about ten minutes of work total to get the onions sauteed, the meat browned, and the seasonings mixed in. Then we just let the meat simmer in beef broth until the liquid evaporated, piled it on to buns, added some pickles and mustard, and voila! The loose meat sandwich.
I have to be honest and say that I was very unexcited about this week. Like, very unexcited. I felt like the sandwich wasn’t going to be horrible, but I also felt like it wasn’t going to resonate with me.
I am thrilled to report that I was wrong.
That horribly-named-sandwich did the impossible, un-Karen’d itself and turned out to be great. It had a down-home umami quality to it and — unlike some sandwiches — the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Plus, its work-to-tastiness ratio was a real winner. There were very few ingredients that required very little effort to transform them into a sandwich with a tastiness that felt very undeserved. Because — so far — some of our favorite sandwiches on this journey have taken a decent amount of prep, effort, or shellfish murder.
This just goes to show that you don’t have to be the prettiest or have the best name to still make something special out of yourself. That’s a lesson for both people and sandwiches.
