Thanks for that well-researched input, samclem.
Maybe I’ll fix hot tamales for dinner tomorrow! That’ll be a blast from my past.
I defer to your research in all things loose meat.
Sorry. I hate to admit I’ve been to Northern New Jersey myself but have to give it up for their sandwiches, out of this world.
My mom and grandma (both from Indiana) called it Spanish hamburger, too. I’ve never heard anyone else call it that, though.
What makes them ‘Spanish’? 
There’s nothing Spanish in them (unless you consider tomato sauce ‘Spanish’).
I suspect the chain of logic was the following:
Sloppy joes contain hamburger meat and tomatoes.
So they’re sort of like tacos. (This assumes that you know nothing except for some Americanized tacos with hamburger meat, tomatoes, and some mild spices.)
Tacos are from Mexico.
They speak Spanish in Mexico.
Yeah, it’s a pretty weak chain of logic. That’s the point.
Aha! I found my mom’s “hot tamale” recipe! It was typed onto an index card using the old Smith-Corona manual typewriter we had back in the 50’s thru the 60’s!
3 lbs ground chuck or hamburger
2 onions, finely chopped
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped (optional)
16 oz tomato sauce
8 oz water
1 tsp chili powder (optional)
Salt to taste
Brown ground meat in skillet, pour into colander and rinse well. Put into dutch oven, add all other ingredients except salt, stir thoroughly. Salt to taste. Cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours. If too much liquid, remove cover and set on High for 10 minutes.
Serve on hamburger buns.
Green peppers? Chili powder? Lordy, that was exotic for Sheboygan County back in that era. No wonder she made that bit optional. But she added it into the ones she made for us.
Wow. That is such an Iowa type of statement. 
Just to add fuel to this one, a sandwich made out of ground hamburger, tomato sauce/ketchup, chili powder and or green pepper/onion is also known from the period(1940s if not earlier) as a a “loose meat” or Maid-Rite(made right) sandwich, a “Tavern” sandwich and perhaps other names, depending on your location.
I thought loose meat/Maid Rite sandwiches were basically sloppy joes without the “slop,” i.e. tomato sauce. Is this incorrect?
Nope, you’re correct and I"m wrong. I didn’t go back and read my old research. Now that I have, the trademarked Maid-Rite sandwiches are just the loose, cooked hamburger with spices, no tomato sauce. There were some instances of people calling a sloppy joe(with the tomato sauce) a loose meat sandwich.
Chili powder was one of the ingredients in my Mom’s dish. That’s what qualified it as “Spanish” I guess. Along with celery, onions, and tomato sauce and probably some other spices too (no store-bought Manwich mix in my family!). Wish I knew the source of the recipe. My guess is that it either was passed down from my mom’s mom (though my grandmother never made the dish in my memory) or it came out of a cookbook or a newspaper.
Interesting that my Mom wasn’t the only one with a Spanish Hamburgers dish, MissGypsy…
Rinse? As in with water?
That’s what it says, yes.
I was surprised, too. I don’t really remember mom rinsing her cooked ground beef before. Taking off the fat, yes. Rinsing it, no.
<<shudder>>
I don’t really have much to add, except thanks for stirring a memory from very early childhood. I forgot that people used to call them that. Probably haven’t heard it for close to 25 years. I’ll have to confirm the next time I talk to her, but I think my mom used to say that. She is from southern California, but her parents were from Nebraska. No one in my family is from Wisconsin.
i live in Sheboygan, when we were a kid my mom made hot tomales, it wasn’t until i was in middle school that i found out that everyone else calls them sloppy joe. my mom has always known it as hot tomales, as she was taught it by her mother who used the same term.
i suspect that this name comes from the great depression era, when struggling families used different ingredients to make food, but still refered to them by the original name… such as using egg noodles and tomato soup and calling it speghetti.
The name probably stuck over the years, and probably even pre-dates the “sloppy joe” name that we know today.
using the term “bubbler” as a term for water fountain will always be used in this area because of the Kohler Company which invented it. its like calling a bandage a “band-aid” its the same thing but the term “band-aid” refers to the a brand name the same way the term “bubbler” refers to a specific brand of water fountain.
and i pitty the fool who doesn’t enjoy a good brat fry
Some years back, I made (what I call) sloppy joes (i.e., ground beef with a tomato-based sauce on buns) for a potluck, and one of the other grad students asked if I was the one who brought the Maid Rites. So there’s at least someone who calls a loose ground beef sandwich with the sauce that. IIRC, the student in question was from central Illinois, but if it’s who I think it was, she’s since graduated, so I can’t easily confirm.
Every Wednesday in the Manitowoc school system the hot lunch was, wait for it, Hot Tamales. Here is the school lunch recipe.
1 pound hamburger
1/2 cup of diced onions
1/2 teaspoon of chili powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/3 teaspoon of pepper
1 cup of diced celery
1 can tomato soup
They’re about the same relation to regular hamburger that ‘spanish rice’ is to regular rice.
What’s weird is when Zombies call sandwiches with cold brains “hot tamale”.
When Mrs. L.A. makes ‘chicken enchiladas’, that’s how she makes them. Corn tortillas layered with chicken and cheese in some sort of cream-based sauce (Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, I think) and topped with shredded cheddar cheese.
When I make enchiladas, I soften the corn tortillas in enchilada sauce, fill them with whatever, put them in a casserole dish, and put in the enchilada sauce and top with cheese.
The only place I’ve ever had a “loose hamburger” it’s basically a coney with the hotdog replaced with loose ground beef. Served in a hotdog bun, covered in chili sauce (not sloppy joe sauce) onions and mustard. Comes in a set of two. I have em leave off the mustard.