Put Some Pop in Your Pork!

By Katie Barreira

The first I heard of spiking ground meat with soda was while cooking with a friend and fellow chef who uses a splash of Sprite to tenderize the filling in her pork dumplings. But the idea has been around at least as long as the soft drink. For Coke, that’d be 125 years as evidenced by their heritage meatloaf recipe – a mixture of ground beef, onions, catsup, basil and ½ cup of Coca-Cola.

While soft drinks also make excellent marinades for tough cuts, like flank steak, they are particularly effective in ground meat mixtures. So what’s the method behind the madness?

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Messy Meals

By Andrew Hunter

I coach our boys’ football, baseball, basketball and soccer teams. It’s the highlight of my day to be on a field running around with the neighborhood kids. They all enjoy learning to throw spiral passes, catch pop flies and kick goals, but they really, really enjoy getting dirty. They’ll dive for fly balls 10 feet from their gloves and slide into second when the play’s at third…all with the hope of getting dirty.

Dirt’s a badge of honor when you’re a kid. So why would the dinner table be any different?

Messy meals are popular in our house and Sloppy Joes are the perfect messy meal. They’re a saucy concoction of ground meat and vegetables perched precariously between a top and bottom bun. We spike our Joes with onions, tomatoes and fresh herbs, depending on our mood.

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