This sandwich pays tribute to those early days. It is a sloppy joe of sorts, built on a base of crumbled sausage, tomato sauce, green peppers. In an accounting of the recipe in the forthcoming “Emily: The Cookbook,” out in the fall, Hyland said he suggests using chorizo because you can’t regularly find chouriço in stores outside the coastal New England cities where Portuguese communities have thrived since at least the late 19th century. Mexican chorizo is similarly spiced, if a little less fatty: garlicky, red-brown with paprika, more fiery than the Portuguese version. You can use the sausages almost interchangeably, but when I can find chouriço in the markets I haunt, I prefer it: fatty and rich.

Other times, though, I can’t. And sometimes I can’t find Mexican chorizo either. Then I use Guatemalan chorizo, more pungent than the Portuguese, less spicy than the Mexican. I’ve used a vinegar-bright Salvadoran chorizo too. There are a lot of chorizos. Taste tests suggest you get a great sandwich whichever one you use. I like to pool the sauce on top of the sharp provolone, so that the cheese softens slightly and imparts its bite. Above the sauce, I like a handful of baby kale or spinach leaves, for the texture they provide. And do not stint on the olives, banana peppers or celery seeds that Hyland uses to adorn the greens. The celery seeds especially, a nod to the celery salt traditionally shaken on hot dogs in Rhode Island, are a perfect touch, if a surprising combination. Hyland shrugged. “I like to cook ingredients that taste good together,” he said. These do.

Recipe: Chorizo Sloppy Joes With Kale and Provolone