The only bad thing about hamburgers is that Trump eats them. I love them even though they are America’s favorite food. My father, a big red-meat eater, cooked them over charcoal, crispy on the outside, red to pink inside. That to me is still the standard.
The recent fuss about not eating red meat is entirely overdone. Health foodies all say cut down on red meat; my Anemia problems call for more of it. One can never please the health Nazis who, like the other kind, are taking over the world.
You start with first-class red meat, coarse-ground steak is best, no chopped onions or other crap added in to adulterate the flavor. Salt and pepper only, a very hot fire on pan or grill, and of course a decent bun. The additions or toppings we will discuss below. Ketchup for Americans is pretty standard and so is cheese.
To my taste, fast food burgers are mostly bad, especially the McDonald’s offerings. The Big Mac is a joke of a hamburger: two thin badly cooked patties, lettuce, 100-island sauce and three pieces of bun. More bread than meat. Mi compañera and I were discussing why a club sandwich has a seemingly unnecessary third slice of bread. I said it was to hold things together. But the Big Mac has no such excuse. McD’s new offering, the Double Big Mac, has four beef patties.
The regular Big Mac in the U.S. has 590 calories 34 grams of carbs, and 1050 milligrams of sodium. If the Double Big Mac turns out to be the same in the U.S. as the Canadian version, it will have about 740 calories, 48 grams of carbohydrates, and 1020 milligrams of sodium.
Americans will now get even fatter. The best of the junk food offerings, I think, is Burger King’s Whopper: the meat is flame broiled, and you get a “4 oz (110 g) beef patty, sesame seed bun, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, and sliced onion. Beats the Big Mac every time.
Mexicans put everything or anything in their hamburguesas, always served with fries: “beef patty, american cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onions, pickles, avocado, jalapenos, mayo, mustard and ketchup on toasted buns. Optional to add fried egg or ham.” The meat is invariably overcooked and tasteless.
I had a pretty good hamburguesa on the beach last week. It featured real meat, lettuce, tomato, mayo, avocado and a bit of red onion. Sometimes all the added stuff works, especially if it’s fresh.
In 1954 Ray Kroc bought into the McDonald’s franchise and established the first of the McDonald’s chain in Des Plaines, a suburb of Chicago. My wife and I used to stop there en route to Madison where I was then in grad school. In 1958 we had never eaten anything like it, a novelty food. Note the price; we were hungry and it was cheap.