A while back, I was spending time in a burger shop (no, not that one, this one), and my travelling companion and I began to discuss what would be, the perfect burger. Admittedly, I’ve talked about good burgers before, including the one I’d had at Skillet, but in this case, I am not talking about something that someone adds bacon jam, or Foie gras, short rib meat, truffles, engages it with a knife and fork, or is a dish for an environment where six month reservations are needed. What is being talked about here is the purified essence of what a burger is, with nothing added or taken away. From that essence, then we should take each ingredient, and bring it to its essence. In short, we are talking about taking the humble hamburger, and bringing it to its eventual truth.
So ultimately, what is a hamburger, and how do we get to the essence of the Hamburger. Wikipedia talks about the beginnings of hamburger talking about the city of Hamburg, Germany, and a spiced tartare steak that derived from there in the 18th and 19th centuries. This was served both raw and cooked, and was ultimately brought worldwide by German immigrants. I find this argument a little specious, though, as ultimately, it’s a type of minced beef. It doesn’t take much imagination to fry up some minced beef into a patty, much like potato pancakes, fish patties, and meatballs, to mention other forcemeat that was shaped into patties.
Anyway, its said that the first written menu reference to ‘hamburger’ is from Delmonicos (New York City) in 1826, who likely decided it relates back to Germany. Ultimately though, the term has come to mean a chopped beef (or mince) patty, generally with a bun with fresh vegetables inside. Aside from that basic description, there are wide variations.
The most common variation is what I’d call the Fast-food burger (as shown below). Its made at a cut-rate price, and in some ways strikes me as a very wrong thing. The bun is ultimately gluey and without flavor, and the beef is often greasy, with limp, lifeless lettuce and tomato on top. Now, I am not going to demean this burger further, and in all honestly, I sometimes have a hankering for it myself. (and for the full-immersion effect of this type of burger, go to Dicks Drive in in Seattle. In this case, the experience is all about the no-frills burgers, the parking, the pick-up of the order and the eating of the burger in the car in the lot.
The one, more serious concern, particularly in the United States, with commercial hamburgers have to do with the use of Ammonia as an antibacterial. Having spent time around blueprint machines, a person knows very well about the fact that Ammonia is not the best ingredient for the human body, and in fact, can be downright caustic. This is one of many reasons in this series, I will be directing people to make their own burgers.
In all candor, this will not be the cheapest way to build a burger. Cost is not really the point, and neither is the amount of work and/or effort. This project is more about getting to the essence of the burger, the crispness of the lettuce, the flavor rush of the beef, and the pliant, non-mushiness of the bun, it’s about the flavors, and I believe that it might just change your mind about the role of the humble burger, what its role can be in a gourmand’s diet, and indeed what it should be to the gourmet.
As noted by the ‘Part 1′ in the title, there will be more to this series. So stay tuned for the next increment.