Sloppy Ur-Joes

You may recall that I have been thinking deeply since this summer about Sloppy Joes, first when I shared a recipe that I have been refining as one that seemed to my adult taste buds to recreate the experience of eating the product of a recipe I used when I was a little chef ("Jeff's Sloppy Joes"), then later when I was wondering about what that original recipe might have been, prompted by my friend Tim's help in looking in his old cookbook ("Sloppy Joes Again").*

Well, when I was in Kansas City last week, staying in the ancestral home, I happened to look in the drawer in the kitchen (third down, with the dish towels) in which we always kept my first cookbook of youth. Just imagine the flutter in my heart when I saw that the book was still there, just where I left it over 30 years ago.

This discovery does not settle all Sloppy Joes questions by any means, but it does answer a few questions that had been weighing on my mind, and sorts out a few details. For instance, I now know with assurance that it was, pretty much as we thought

Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cook Book, illustrated by Gloria Kamen. New York : Golden Press, 1965 (first edition, first printing, spiral bound with hard covers). 156 pages with index.

Tim, I hope, will be happy to hear that I now have in hand also the instructions / recipe for the "Enchanted Castle Cake", a bizarre, over-achieving fantasy complete with pink-pillow-mint crenelations. We both made one for ourselves–once. I'd forgotten that this book also had the recipe for chocolate fudge that we used for many years and it always came out well.

But here's the treasure, right on page 46, my personal ur-recipe for Sloppy Joes. I give it in its entirety (but without the little tinted boxes highlighting the ingredients):

Boys' and Girls' Sloppy Joes

Heat oven to 325°.

Butter lightly 6 sliced hamburger buns

Wrap in aluminum foil and heat in oven 15 minutes.

Brown in skillet 1 pound ground beef

Stir in
  1 can (10 1/2 ounces) tomato soup
  1 tablespoon prepared mustard
  1/2 teaspoon salt

Simmer over low heat 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Spoon into warm buns.

6 servings.

So now I know the answer to this question: was mustard an original ingredient? Yes! This is where I must have first picked up that little trick for perking up tomato-based sauces that I use all the time.

I am a bit surprised that it was, indeed, done with tomato soup; that had escaped my memory altogether, although it was not at all an uncommon approach at the time. I may try it again someday and see how the original compares with my more recent, somewhat gussied up version.

It is such a joy for me to hold this book again and see this recipe. Now, of course, I'm wondering whether I need to cook my way through it again. There are some fun and useful recipes inside. The illustrations of the young people cooking and commenting on the recipes are great fun, too, although the color photographs are all a bit lurid, as frequently happened with color printing of cookbooks around that time.

Let's close for now with the blurb from the back (plasticized) cover of the book:

Here is the cook book children have loved for years–now bigger and brighter in this new edition! — Gay color photos, lively drawings, and how-to-do-it sketches illustrate more than 275 recipes and food ideas–all specially chosen by girls and boys themselves, and tested in their own homes.

Included are basic cooking steps, breakfast treats, sandwiches, main dishes, cookies, cakes, milk and fruit drinks, party surprises, campfire favorites, and complete meals for special occasions.

Betty Crocker makes learning to cook a happy experience for boys and girls…and for their parents.

———-
* Sure enough, as we both suspected, his recipe came from a later time (over two decades, in fact) and had ingredients that I was pretty sure were not in my ur-recipe. Not to mention that his had also moved beyond the tomato-soup era. Which makes me think: here at last is the recipe that all those googlers are looking for when they search for "sloppy joe tomato soup"!

Posted on December 31, 2007 at 00.39 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Food Stuff, Personal Notebook

2 Responses

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  1. Written by chris
    on Monday, 31 December 2007 at 17.58
    Permalink

    Is it this book that Turned You Gay? It does after all…

    Here is the cook book children have loved for years–now bigger and brighter in this new edition! — Gay color photos,

    …have GAY colour photos!

    You were also mentioning making cakes. Have I pointed you here before? James Lileks posts a 1957 cookbook which tells you how to make house-shaped cakes. They're not quite enchanted castles, but certainly have that jenessaykwah. For the fiftieth anniversary, make a new-year cake for 2007!

    and if you'll scuse me, I have to go get ready for my New Year's Day Levee, and William is asleep on the couch and not being helpful. but what use are guests if not for indentured labour at parties?

    merry new year!

  2. Written by Patti Bendiak
    on Monday, 24 January 2011 at 10.10
    Permalink

    Hello do you have the recipe and directions for the enchanted castle cake in Betty Crocker's New Boy's and Girls cookbook 1965?
    Would appreciate recreating it for my brother's 50th birthday. We made this for him when he was 4.

    Thank nyou,
    Patti

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