We’ve all had some kind of sandwich featuring a Meat Patty on a Bun – a Burger – at least once in our lives. And I’ll bet we’ve all held it the same way when eating it. But there’s a renegade undercurrent in the Foodie realm that insists we’ve been doing it all wrong all along…
The messiest Burger we could find… Is all the goo really necessary?
Of course not!
Reality check: Do you hold your Burger flat-side-down, like I do, and everyone I know does? Probably. But serious Burger aficionados now say the ‘right’ way to hold it is flat-side-up. Or, if you prefer things simpler, upside down.
What’s the big deal?
Radical Foodies insist that we eat our Burgers with the thicker, rounded Bun top, or ‘crown’ on the bottom, and the flat Bun bottom on the top. Why? They say it’s because the average Bum, bottom is not robust enough to stand up to a mudslide of Sauces, Meat Juices and Condiments without getting soggy and, at the extreme, falling apart. And that, we’re told, seriously compromises the true Burger lover’s enjoyment of their meal.
“The crown will then hold the weight of everything else, and there is less likelihood of it falling apart in your hands,” Simon Dukes, founder of the Burger Lad blog told Business Insider. “A true burger connoisseur should always eat their burgers upside down.”
My take…
This was never an issue back when Men were Real Men, Women were Real Women, and Burgers were real Meat Patties on plain Buns (key image on main page), maybe with a slice of Cheese and, possibly a couple of pieces of Bacon. Even with Mustard, Ketchup and a Pickle, sogginess was never a problem, as I recall.
But now, with Burgers getting ever bigger and incorporating large manifests of Sauces, Condiments and toppings that, in themselves, carry a fair amount of moisture, I can see why the self-styled Burger Experts have identified and solved what they consider a problem.
Take the Whiz Burger (pictured above), a 6,500 Calorie monster from Whiz Burgers in San Francisco’s Mission District. There’s no way you could pick that up at all, unless you first donned shoulder-length plastic Veterinary examination gloves and a rain poncho. But that’s going to extremes.
Your average Messy Burger is just overloaded with drippy, oozy stuff – some so much so that you can’t really taste the Meat anymore. And is a Burger still a Real Burger if the Meat, which is supposed to be the star of the show, has devolved into a mere excuse for all the other stuff?
Nonsense.
The so-called Burger Experts are living with their heads in the clouds. In fact, I consider myself and my ilk – champions of the minimalist approach – to be the true Burger Purists.
And that, as they say, is that.
~ Maggie J.