What Makes a Burger a Burger?
Hello and welcome back toWhat’s Cooking? , an open thread where you can share your brilliant thoughts, tips, recipes and opinions on all food related matters. This is Burger Week , which means I want to know what a burger means to you.
Burger is a simple enough concept: put a ground beef patty on a bun with vegetables, seasonings and possibly cheese (kidding, cheese is always there) and you have a burger. But, just like pizza, people have very strong opinions about what to make a real hamburger out of, and more often than not, and I want to hear yours. As always, I have questions:
- Does a burger have to be beef? I rather casually call veggie burgers and turkey burgers “hamburgers” when there is a descriptor in front of the word. For example, don’t ask me if I want a hamburger and then surprise me with a salmon burger – the word “salmon” would be better there to tell me what will happen.
- What’s your favorite alternative meat burger? This is mutton.
- What’s the best burger trick you’ve ever eaten? The ramen burger is very, very good, as is the burger I made that had donuts instead of buns. (Donuts are underestimated as buns.)
- What fillings are acceptable? I’m not going crazy. Lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles are all I can say, but from time to time I will fuck with fried onions.
- What fillings are not allowed? While I love it in pizza (and gin), you better not add pineapple to my damn burger. I also dislike the avocado in the burger because it’s too greasy and all I try is avocado.
- Is there any better cheese for hamburgers than a humble American one? Not! American cheese melts best, provides the perfect amount of creamy flavor, and is soft enough not to be distracting or distracting. I also enjoy blue cheese from time to time (when my hair grows), but this is a completely different animal as it is basically the opposite of the American one.
- What condiments are added to your burger every time? Mayo is always there, followed by ketchup and mustard. Please do not add barbecue sauce to my burger.
- What’s your favorite instant burger? Although I have lived in In-n-Out country for many years, I have to admit that Shake Shack is better. I also love McDonald’s because I’m a garbage man made from trash.
- What about buns? I love steamed white soft buns and find that most buns in grocery stores – both sesame and plain white – are fine for my purposes. Pretzel buns can be fun if you have fat fights and want to come up with something different, but I rarely do it.
- Do you like a thick or thin cake? How do you cook it? Slim in .
As always, feel free to answer all, none of the above questions, or some of them, or just leave your treatise on burgers in the comments below. If you want to really scream about burgers, now is your chance.