Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave, our owner host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan at Rockefeller Center, News Stand Studios, New York City. Joined as usual with uh John standing behind me. How are you doing? Doing great, thanks.
Yeah, everything good? Yeah, everything's good. Yeah? Yeah. Got uh Joe Hazen rocking the panels over here.
Hey, how are you guys doing? Good. Full house. Good. Full house.
Yeah, yeah. Uh up in the upper, upper, upper West City, West West, we got Quinn holding it down. How you doing? Everything good? Good.
Yeah? We got uh Mr. Molecules with us today. Yes, sir. Hey Jack.
How you doing? Where are you? Where are you today? Back in LA. Uh, you love LA.
You love it. You happy to be back home. I am. I'm yeah, having a great time back here. You sound like you're having a great time.
You sound freaking. The Merlot drinker or a different one? Just messing with you guys. Just no messing with you, Dave. A good girlfriend.
Oh, snap. Uh, and of course, last but certainly not least, Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing? Good. How are you?
Doing well, doing well. You're also uh over there on the other coast. No, I'm in Connecticut right now. Oh, you're okay? All right, good, good.
We're hold we're we're we're I like I like us to be East Coast heavy. I like I like us to weigh down on the East Coast side. So it's good, good. Nice, nice to have you back. Um today's uh special guest is of course the one, the only the burger scholar, George Motes.
How you doing? I'm doing great. How are you doing? Doing well. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, hey, well, thanks for coming on. Coming on to uh because you have a re-release of your The Great American Burger Book. And right? Yes. Yeah, and we extended uh revised everything.
Right. We c we clowned you a little bit last week by because my wife like was like, the Great American Burger Book from the guy that wrote like the what was the what was the other one called Hamburger America? Hamburg America. Which was based on the documentary, I guess, right? Exactly.
I was like, maybe the guy likes burgers. I'm like, no. No. No, no. No, he does not.
But uh this is the portion of the show where we just shoot the breeze a little bit about uh anything we've had last week. So have you had anything interesting to eat or uh any culinary adventures in the past week? Ooh, yeah. I mean, I just went to the uh what did I just I just did the uh friends and family for Roscioli, the new uh that's opening up downtown. He's nodding over there.
I see that. Yeah, yeah. Actually, I don't think I'm not allowed to talk about that, I don't think, because it was a super, super private, super secret party. Well, you probably can't say anything about it, but you could say whether you had a good time or not. I had a great time.
All right, there you go. There you go. The food was fantastic. And the wine was even better. Put it that way.
Yeah. All right. Wow. So that was last night. Yeah now the chef's mad.
Hey, the food was good, but the wine better. I I ate so much food, I eat everything. I had hot dogs. I was in Maine last week eating lobster rolls. Oh, yeah, we were just before you came on there.
But you had a hot lobster roll in Maine, thank Christ. Thank God I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right, all right.
You know, I'm a fan of the hot, I'm a fan of the hot, butter only. Uh first of all, let me just say this. I love mayonnaise. Like I love No, I've I think mayonnaise is one of the greatest inventions in food. Yeah, yeah.
At my last bar, we had a mayonnaise program where we we all different kinds of flavored mayonnaise. Oh, awesome. And you know, we're gonna talk about it later. I probably add nauseum, but like I'm fine with the thousand island alike, but there are many other mayonnaise variants on earth to make other than just ketchup mayo and some chopped up pickles, right? Exactly, yeah.
Absolutely. I mean, you can do go anywhere with I'm as long as you have a mayo base and you have a mayo base sauce, you're going anywhere, really. That's right. And or just mayo. Because you know what mayo is?
Mayo is the oil that you can spread. Exactly. I mean, when you go to a fry shop in Belgium, you got like 50 different types of mayo. You can get it. Oh my god.
That Michelin star dude in uh in Ghent. I forget the dude's name, but his mayo program is is great, and his fries are super on point. No one should say that they know about French fries unless they go to Belgium and just eat around at some of the best fry shops there. Because it's kind of like saying you grew up in an area that only used Mr. Coffey's to make coffee.
You're like, I know everything there is to know about coffee. I know what it should taste like. Yeah. I know what else else is there to know. You know what I mean?
Like, I'm not even I'm not even a fry guy. I'm a hamburger guy, but I'm definitely not a fry guy. I have not had enough good fries in my life to say that I like fries. Put it that way. Yeah, you know who doesn't like fries?
Who? Anastasia. She do you did you I'm with her. Did you used to like them, but you hated them because I like them so much, Stas, or what? No, I I don't hate them.
I just don't like to order them. What about rings? No. Do you know what there's a recipe for in this book? Is the the basket rings.
Well, I don't know what you call them. You call them something else. The basket of rings, like they used to get at like old steakhouses where it's just a little bit of flour, super finely shredded and like fried and like real greasy and piled high. Onion fried nest, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love that. Yeah. Oh, I do too. It's a great way to use leftover onions, throw them in some batter, throw them into not even battery, just you just uh uh bread them or fla flour them, I think in the book. I have it flowered and oil done.
Yeah. That used to be something that you got more. I feel like that's something that kind of went by the wayside. Yeah. That's very true.
Unfortunately, I think it screwed up a lot of fryers, and you had to have a dedicated fryer just for that in the kitchen, unless you were really selling a lot, like say like the palm steakhouse, you did there's no reason to actually keep keep those on the menu, I don't think. Tony Romas. Tony Roma's. Oh, they that's right. Do you know I've I've never been to a Tony Romas?
I I have. I have not. They do, they have they have the frizzled uh onions. I forgot about that. Where are they in the pantheon of chain uh chain kind of steaky, meaty restaurants?
I'm not gonna comment on that one. All right. All right. Like above a tads. Oh, tad remember Tad's Days?
I do. Are they still around now? I never could go in because, you know, over near Times Square, I was like, this is dicey. No, Tad Tads was horrible. But I mean they were they served a purpose, but they were not, I mean, they were, you know.
They're like they're like a giant one millimeter thick steak, two bucks. You're like, what? That can't be possible. I don't yeah, no, no. I used to go to Fresca Tortilla next door because their meat, their like beef, uh they had they made those fresh flour tortilla.
You ever go to a fresca tortilla? No. Oh my god. They were I forget the nationality of the people who had it. They were not uh they were not of Mexican extraction.
But they had worked at a place and kind of got into this kind of fresh flour tortilla machine. And so they had this thing, they were churning out flesh fresh flour tortillas, and then they would just make like this like uh like steak mix that went in it, and that was like the lunch for two bucks in the 90s. Like uh in the I, you know, I lived in that kind of Times Squarey kind of area. And uh yeah, and they there was a Tad's right near it, and I was like, no, I'm gonna go f I'm gonna go to Fresco tortilla, and you know, always a line, always fast, always delicious. How about Blarney stone?
Remember the Barney stone? Oh yeah. I never used to go, but I yes. Oh, yeah those are good those are good just a bunch of boiled meats out in the middle of the room fantastic yeah yeah like a boil well we're gonna get into boiled mates a little bit later in the uh in the program so uh what about what about you guys uh what about uh what about on the West Coast anything interesting happened in the past uh week culinarily uh either in Vancouver Island or uh in LA for me uh not burger related but I I'm cooking my way through the session one cookbook right if you should done last yeah you know we should have if she's ever in New York we should have her on the show she's a friend of Harold McGee and her work is just really good you know oh man the recipes are good too we made this um dry this numbing and hot dried beef which was very complicated but worth it how it came out well yeah you like boil it twice and blanch it and deep fry it and then cook it in its own um stock from earlier and it takes forever but it was damn good. So when you said cooking your way through you've now put the song working my way back to you babe in my head and all I can think is the burning love inside and that's all I'm gonna be able to think of for the entire rest of the show.
So thanks Jack appreciate it. Yeah you're welcome. I appreciate it. Yeah uh Quinn you got anything uh yeah we did a little Father's Day celebration which was an interesting mix of local fresh seafood and Indian takeout. So we did like a little oyster bar, some stir fried spot bronze and then we got uh Sabin becoming uh graphlex in process.
All right. Well, I I like Gravlocks. Yeah. I'm I'm training Booker to cure his own salmon. Uh because, you know, I don't expect him to be rich and he likes cured salmon.
And so the last time I got a side of salmon, uh, he was like, Dad, can you cause we when we cure it, we skin it first because he's not gonna be a Rust and daughter style sli a slicer, right? And plus we don't have room in the fridge for a whole side to cure, so we skin it and break it into belly and loin. And then and he's like, I told him how to skin it and all that, and then I walked away and I came back and it was mutilated. But he ate it all anyway. So, like, you know, like look, to butcher a fish, to like to learn to butcher a fish, you gotta butcher a few fish.
You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, yeah. So anyway, good stuff. Uh what about you, Stas? You got anything from the Great State of Connecticut?
We're about to go into Connecticut tears, so yeah. Uh no, no, nothing, nothing cooking wise. No, no. Something not cooking wise that you want to share. That's you think my channel.
I guess that's my God, I'm so sorry. Are they gonna do all are they gonna do all four or two or what? That's the bottom. Okay, listen. Can I listen, listen?
They did that to me, and then I waited fifteen years to get the other ones out because it was such a freaking nightmare. Oh, well, I shouldn't be telling you. It's great. It's not a problem. Listen, it's the i i it's there's no problem.
It's gonna be no problem. I told you, you we've had this discussion. My teeth are like tiny corkscrews that are like burred into my head so that whenever an oral surgeon has to take a tooth out of me, like they have to plant their knee in my face and freaking jerk on it. You know what I mean? And like, you know, there's always blood all over their faces, all over their masks.
It's always a nightmare. I'm sure your teeth are not nearly as obstinate as mine, and it'll be fine. You're gonna have a gray surgery. Oh, it's gonna be great. I think you're you're getting the good stuff though, right?
You're not I I remember we had this discussion. I was like, don't just get the Novicane, have them make you loopy. I think I'm going semi-under. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, loopy.
All you need's loopy. The IV Valium. Do you need to not care? You just need to not care. That's the important part.
Yeah. I've always cared. And then, like I say, like I have this habit of having the oral surgeon somehow get mad at me that my tooth doesn't want to come out, like I wheeled it into my freaking head. You know? Anyway.
Well, I just had root canal. And this is the cheese. But it's not just, it's also this the smell of the and it's also the sound. So there's like a multi-sensory experience when you're when you're at the dentist, unfortunately. Sorry, I didn't mean to harp on that more, but it's true.
So are you it's like I have a thing, the sound of that high-pitched thing, and then when the vibrations in your head when like a drill or something hits you, it's it's kind of not okay. Not okay. No, it's not okay. Of course, the t the doctor will always say to me that no what are you eating? Like, oh what do you like to know?
Vegetables. Everything literally everything. Well, you say in the intro, was that you that no, no. Or is that Zimmerman's uh thing where he was like, I like vegetables. Do you ever admit to liking vegetables?
Oh, I love vegetables, yeah. Vegetables are a necessary thing for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, better than the alternative.
What? Fruit? Dying young. Yeah. Well, all right.
My health is important. Yeah. Uh yeah. Um, okay. So we have a bunch of questions.
First of all, let me ask you this little you history. So uh I remember seeing the the original uh documentary, Hamburger America way back in and learned many things that I have not. In fact, can I tell you something? So, like for those of you that don't know, is that how you got into the burger, or did you do it because you love burgers? That was it, the film the OG film Hamburg America was the reason that that started this whole journey.
Right, because you were like you were working in in film and like in like production, right? Yeah, I was uh union uh director of photography for many years. Right. So you're like, oh no burgers, interesting American story. Let me research this.
Maybe I there's something there. Is that what happened? Basically, I was trying to find a subject uh for a documentary. And I ended up getting on the road and doing I've traveled a lot uh for filming for you know for shooting TV commercials and and and films and that sort of thing. And then would go out on the road and say, guys, I'm gonna go over here and look at this hamburger spot, sort of bringing a camera with me and then recording some of these hamburger moments, interviews, and it ended up as hamburger America, the film.
Oh, wait, so you didn't get money to go do that? You were doing that on the side. On my own, yeah. Oh man. Self-funded.
Were you stealing like the sound person's freaking equipment? We did. I l I did everything, literally. I didn't do the interviews. I because I wanted to focus on everything else.
So I had friends of mine who were reporters in different towns around America and had them like actually conduct the interviews with my questions. Right, but you're but your case, your voice isn't in it. Your literal voice is and you have like the most amazing radio voice. Oh, thank you. I knew I wanted to focus on the people who were in the in the in the uh restaurants.
You know, that was more important. And mostly just pr pretty much the owners and people telling burger stories. To me, you know, the there it was equally about people who made the burgers as well as these crazy burgers that were in the film. Well, if you ever redo it, though, you gotta get that gravelly Casey Caseum action going. It's like gravelly Casey Caseum is what I'm hearing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a huge fan, I'm still a huge fan of uh Errol Morris. And he made a film called it was called uh Vernon, Florida. Oh, yeah, yeah. Where you don't he's he's not in the film, which is everyone telling stories about the weird, weirdo stories about Vernon, Florida.
And so I was trying to model the film after that. There's a sort of a a Vernon uh Vernon Florida-esque kind of version of Hamburger America. All right, so then you do this thing, and then you become hamburger guy. I started getting asked my opinion about hamburgers, and people said, Well, you know what you're talking about. You you made a film about hamburgers.
No, I'm a filmmaker. I don't know. You you so they the press, the media turned me into this hamburger expert. They would call me out of like CNN called, oh, we need you to put a hamburger expert. Okay, fine.
So I went in and talk about hamburgers. And then eventually it became a book called Hamburger America, a guidebook to hamburgers in America. That became expanded twice, twice or three times, and then we made a cookbook, made a TV show called Burgerland, it just kept getting bigger and bigger. So yeah, at this point, I I can call myself a hamburger expert officially. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I I should think so. Also, yeah. Also, most people who say they're an expert in something really aren't at all. Yeah. Exactly.
So what I can't. I I push back for years. I know a lot about hamburgers. No, you're an expert. No, I'm not sure.
Yeah. Well, who else would you ask the question of, though? Once once there's no one else that you would ask other than yourself, then you're the expert. That's right. You know what I mean?
When you start to go Google things about hamburgers and I come back with my information. Oh, damn it. Yeah, or when someone gives you some garbage off of Google and you're like incorrect. That's when you're like, oh yeah, I'm the expert in this. That's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh all right, all right. So uh going back to that, there is something in uh in that documentary that has stuck with me. This is almost 20 years old now.
Um that is stuck with me for the 20 years. That mentally I bring up, and it's actually about it's a it's about one of the places that we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about Connecticut Burgers. There's not a lot of there's only one Connecticut burger in this burger book. Shameful.
No, no. You only put Well, you mentioned a bunch. No, but you in the in in this book, you only talk about the steamed cheeseburger from Ted's. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, yeah. Yeah, right.
Yeah, you do Louis and you do all that stuff again. There's many. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh but uh so Louis Lunch, you know, for those of you that haven't ever heard me go off on it before, is a small like building in New Haven that got moved once, and it used to literally only be open for lunch.
Like when I was it at Yale, it was only open for lunch. And now it's open until 1 a.m. Although listen, if any of you go to Louie's lunch and there and you think you're gonna go there at 1 a.m. and get a burger, you're not. They have run out of meat.
They have run out of meat. And I'm like, yo, you make one thing, buy more meat. And it's the same guy. It's the freaking grandson who's there, not apologetic at all. I'm like, I couldn't get here before like 12 30.
Sorry. Yeah. Out of meat. Out of meat. Should have gotten here earlier.
Come here tomorrow. But he's not open tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's never open tomorrow. We're open for an hour and a half tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's ridiculous. Anyway. So and for those of you that don't know, like they have these vertical crematoriums that they cook their hamburgers in, and then this weird white vertical toaster, and it's all it's very legit. Do you like their burger?
I actually do. Uh it's a very straightforward uh pared-down burger. I mean, it's basically a patty melt, uh, sort of. I mean, it's a very no squish. But they're not squish, but there's cheese on there and it's served on bread on too.
Yeah. It's but it's whiz, yeah. Yeah. Oh, some yeah, some version of whiz, I think. Well, well, so you in the book you make a very big distinction between uh what you call cold pack cheddar and cheese whiz.
Absolutely. Yes. And you are not a cheese whiz man, you are a cold pack cheddar man. Oh, I love cold patch cheddar. Yeah.
I mean, but cheese whiz has its place, does its thing, and and it does not do that thing in the Midwest for sure. That's that's all for cold pack cheddar. Well you made me feel bad because sometimes like at home, I I bought a thing at Cheese Wiz once because Dax was like, We're gonna do burgers. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna whiz these.
And I had it on on the bread, right? Because you're like, because I that's what I figured Louise uses, but I don't know whether they use whiz or whether they use cold pack. I don't know. Something something between, maybe we don't know. I think it's probably closer to the whiz, I think.
I mean, if you go to Philadelphia, it's all about the whiz. You ever you ever done the port wine on it? No. I I maybe I did by accident once, but no, I usually stay away from that. Yeah, the poor wine cheese, you know what I'm talking about?
Oh, I know, yeah, of course. That's also, by the way, cold pack cheddar. Yeah. But you've never used it on a burgers, do you? I use regular, you know, good old murked cheddar.
Yeah, yeah. Well, can you can you buy that here in New York? Yeah. Which merked? Yeah.
Uh the only place you can actually get it, believe it or not, is Walmart on Long Island in New Jersey. Huh. Weird. I don't know why. Yeah.
That's like you can only get a good like Rochester hot dogs at Wegmans. Right. Well, Wegmans up. They're from that area. From out there.
Tweigles. They're a good hot dog. Swiggles are a good hot dog. Yeah. And now John here is a Connecticut man, so he's like, it's gotta be humble.
Although there's a lot of other Connecticut brands of hot dogs, my friend. That's true. That's true. I didn't need to branch out. So what stuck so vertical toaster, and they used to have a sign in the in Louie's launch that said, This is not Burger King.
You do not get it your way. It's still there. Yeah. And uh good to know. Uh and it was on Xerox paper in the 90s.
You know what I mean? I'm sure it's the same sheet of Xerox paper. Yeah. Uh so both the the w the wife, now the mom, I'm sure long dead because she was She unfortunately passed, yes. Yeah.
And and the dad, who's the second generation, yeah, not the grandfather, said in your film that they have never had. Well, she hasn't had a burger since she married into the family anywhere else. So since like fifth 1951. And he in his entire of his life had never had a burger other than the Louise Lunch Burger. And this has stuck in my head as like a weird phenomenon that you get with like uh certain groups of people who don't ever want to taste outside of their own world, even to see what's out there, because they're so resistant to a certain kind of change that it's almost like they'd be polluting their bodies.
And it's the direct antithesis of everything that I believe as a cook. Right, right. You know, I mean, our generation and the generations younger than us, we're all taught go eat as much as possible, taste, learn. But you get certain pizza heads, old school pizza heads, not new ones. New pizza heads are all about tasting, right?
But old school burger heads, um, yeah, they would rather die than eat somebody else's product. And that one interview stuck me over 20 years. I think about it still. I'm like, what the hell? I couldn't believe it.
I mean, when I heard it, I thought to myself, that that can't be right. Right. But I guess it can be. If they I mean, I think his argument was that he was too busy working to go try other burger. Which is a lie because they used to be closed by noon every freaking day.
And closed for the entire month of August. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no time for a burger. Yeah. And the wife was like, so uh I went to McDonald's, but I had a filet of fish.
Sure you did. Sure you did. She probably did. I believe I believe Lee. Leona Leona Lasson was her name.
That she had she had uh painted on eyebrows. Oh, I like that. Yeah. That used to be a thing. I know, it's like definitely a thing.
Yeah, my grandparents' generation, like, let me shave off and then repaint. Yeah. All all all Lee did was was work for the company, work for the burger joint. It was amazing. That's all she did.
She was so hyper-focused all the time. Yeah. She said she would bring her it's a good thing. She would bring the kids when they were kids uh to the restaurant and they would help out when they were old enough, but when they were little babies, they would just sit in the back. Because she was so dedicated to the to the place.
Now, do you like the crappy slice of tomato they put on that with the piece of onion? And the miscut onion? What about the miscut onion? Miscut onion I'm okay with. But there's a trick though.
If you go there certain times of the day, they'll actually put the onion in the grill and cook it with the burger. Oh. But if you go there like lunchtime, they're like, nope, not doing that, sorry. And then just stick it on cold. Yeah, I've never had it that way.
I've always had the it's like lopsided cut. Yeah. Like the person cutting it like wasn't even looking. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?
It's like a wedge. Yeah. Yeah. And uh and the the terrible quality tomato. Yeah.
White bread, whiz. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. But it's good.
Yeah. But but it's an American classic somehow, right? Yeah. It's always it's always diagonal cut across the across the bread. Yeah.
With the with the with the juice coming out of the it's a relatively thick patty for it for its for its weight, it is relatively thick. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. But it's also very lean. It's not a lot of fat in there, too. Yeah.
It's something I have a little bit of an issue with. So the all the fat is coming actually from the whiz. Hence whiz. Hence the whiz, yeah. Hence whiz.
Uh all right. So maybe we should. We have people ask us questions. So why don't we get to those before? Because otherwise I would just sit here and talk to you about Connecticut Burger.
You talk about Ted's, which is a great burger place. Right. I was there last week also. Oh yeah? Yeah.
Grabbing through. On my way back from getting lobster rolls. I have a burger tender as you have a burger tender. Yes. Yeah.
You have one. Of course. Come on. Sorry. Freaking amateurs here.
You think you're coming on an amateur show? Yeah, exactly. I guess I was. No. That's great.
I have the new style though with the yellow Ultham steaming trays. Ooh. So for those of you that don't know what the hell we're talking about, steam cheeseburgers, I'm not a I'm okay with a steamed cheeseburger. I love the cheese. Yeah.
To me, it's the cheese. And so, like, you can buy people, if you don't want to spend the money on the really nice little like burger tender steaming contraption, you can buy just the steam containers that are the exact right size for both either the burger or the cheese. Right. Or you can look at the recipe in the book and do none of that. And you well, you use ramekins.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of ways to get around that. But you your burgers aren't square though.
Doesn't matter. It's gotta be square. They could they well, square is weird to me. I thought that was very strange, you know? It is strange, but that's part of the Connecticut thing.
Exactly. The butt is round. Why why wouldn't you want to have a round burger? So Connecticut, I think is the Connecticut's bringing the Kaiser back because Connecticut Kaiser rolls are better. So you're grew up in New York.
Yeah. We look like we're similar ages. Right. And it when we were kids, the buttered roll was the the I don't have money, I need something to eat. You get from a stand buttered roll, Kaiser, a hundred percent of the time.
But wait, poppy seat or not? Uh depending on the stand, I like poppy rolls. Long island where I grew up, 100% poppy seat. 100% poppy. 100%.
Yeah. But then something happened and Kaisers got crappy. And then they they got stale, they got crappy. I don't know whether people stopped ordering them. And then I stopped ordering because I was like, this is crappy.
Like it's not like the butter roll used to be. Yeah. Because that was the cheap eat. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, but it was a butter roll. That's all it was. It cost a dollar. You could walk into a gas station. You can put it at a gas station for a dollar.
Yeah. And you know, later in the day, if you had a little bit extra money from the hot dog place, you didn't get a hot dog. You got the the the hot beef. Remember the uh beef sausage, the spicy beef sausage that they used to sell? They were bigger than they were bigger than the hot dog than the Sabret Hot Dogs, and they only cost like 10 cents more.
Ooh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the onion goop. Oh, with the onion goop. Or you an onion goop, or I mean, like, because I don't really like their crap, but onion goop, I used to love the onion goop.
I'm not I I like onion goop. Again, yeah. Again, you're not a hot dog guy, so we're not gonna we're not gonna be talking about hot dogs. But the Kaiser roll in in I've you know the past like ten years, I've been going to these places in Connecticut, and I was like, they have actually legitimately good Kaiser rolls. And I'm like, I think the Kaiser roll needs more of a national resurgence.
What are your thoughts on the casual one? I agree. I would like to see so we have something called the uh breakfast special on Long Island. Getting it going even on a further further tangent, but it involves the poppy seed Kaiser roll, and they're fantastic. The there's nothing like a breakfast special.
It's nothing more than usually ham or bacon eye ham, uh fried egg and American cheese on a roll with ready for this one? Salt pepper ketchup. All right. So you ask for hammed cheese, salt pepper ketchup, and you guys say one with one thing. Ham H.
Ham H is on my ketchup. Uh yeah, no problem. Yeah, yeah. Uh speaking uh okay, so Ted's uh other steamed cheeseburgers I've had have been bad. This is a really good point.
Yes. There's a reason why, I think. It's because Ted's makes so many of them that this it becomes an environmental thing. The more burgers you're making in that in the burger steaming contraption, the better it becomes. There's a lot of airborne grease, a lot of airborne burger grease.
If you're only making a few of them, then they're not gonna be good. Like if you try to make them at home, they're not as good if you try to make them at home unless you're making like a hundred for a party for a party. They just don't taste the same. And also they're at zero, they're at zero hold time there because they're always coming in and out. Like so the cheese is coming in and out, and like you watched, it has they have a certain amount of rest time before they put the cheese on.
Right. The steamed cheese cheese fry is a good call. And yeah. I agree. That's that is a good one.
Yeah. Steamed cheese is a very specific thing. And what happens uh scientifically whenever you melt cheese through steam is very unique. Because it's not, it's not this different type different kind of heat. All right.
My favorite thing about the steamed cheese is when it's not horrible still, when it becomes taffy. Right. That to me is like the that's like the the sweet point. But I'm the only one in my family who loves it. So like I'll do it.
Like I for about a year, whenever I made hamburgers, I would make normal hamburgers, which in my house is bacon grease fried burgers. Right, right. Nice. Uh and I know you're a huge fan of tallow. Do you really think it makes that big of a I always have bacon grease because I just cook bacon.
Yeah. But do you think that it actually makes a huge difference to to use beef fat as the because I happen to now have a bunch. Yeah, I mean it's it's the it's the probably the most familiar uh grease uh to the burger itself. Right. It recognizes what's happening because it's all part of the same family.
I think it somehow I think obviously every animal is different when you're cooking. If you want to get in the science of this, but when you're you're joining beef fat with a hamburger, you know, obviously it's all in the same family. So somehow I I had this, I guess maybe it's just in my head. I feel like it works better. Because in your mind, you're more like a monk.
You're like, beef like that. Basically, yeah. Yeah. I was actually at an event once, and we were late to set up, and we had these brand new griddles that had not been seasoned yet, and I said, Oh, great, this is not gonna work. So I just took a bunch of beef and chucked it on this hot griddle, started chopping it up like I was making a chopped cheese, and rendered all the fat onto this thing, and then scraped it all off, gave it to a nearby dog, and I ended up with the perfect seasoned griddle.
And I thought to myself, that's what we should all be doing is seasoning our griddles with the thing we're going to be cooking with. That's also insanity though. Cooking the meat and then giving it to I made this chopped cheese. Hey, phido. You know what I mean?
A lot of happy dogs out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking of the chopped cheese, because I'm gonna forget otherwise. So, so like, that's the thing that didn't exist when we were kids. Yeah, that exists now.
Right. I think that is good. It's not a burger. It's good though. It's not a big, it's in the burger family, for sure.
Burgerloid, yeah. Yeah, burger. It's burglar, yeah. It's it's up there. Yeah.
It's a great experience. But it's also a very specific experience to Harlem. And it really shouldn't go anywhere else. I mean, there's people in Brooklyn and Bronx who would say that theirs is good. You know what I mean?
But it still has to be that style of place, right? Yeah, and I know those guys too. I'm friend, I've I've become friendly with Haji from uh Blue Sky. I forgot what it's called. Yeah, yeah.
That's the OG. Yeah, yeah. We actually we did it we I have this thing uh called the food film festival. We actually showed a film about chopped cheese made by director Justin Bolis, and we had Haji come down to the festival and make them. So it was as legitimate as he could possibly be.
We weren't trying to make chopped cheese. We had Haji make them. Yeah, nice. And how were they? Delicious?
They were fantastic. Yeah. So for him it was effortless. He's just there chopping out, chopping, chopping, like, yeah, whatever. So my favorite term in this whole book, if you get nothing else out of this book, stunt burger.
Stunt burgers. You're like, eh, it but it's it's like I don't even know that you ever define it. You're like, this is almost this is not a stunt burger. Looks like a stump burger, it's not a stump burger. Like, this is a stunt burger, stunt burger being bad.
Why don't you tell us what a stunt burger is? Well, good or bad, depending. It's if a stunt burger has longevity, if it's been around for some there's some burgers in this book that have been around for a very long time. That Australian monstrosity. Right.
So that's exactly. So that has staying power. We know it's been around for a while. We know people actually love it. So therefore, that's a stunt burger that worked and it's okay to be there.
What I was talking about, the stunt burgers I don't like are the ones that are just sort of flash in the pan. People are doing literally just for TikTok or Instagram. Yeah. And they're they're jokes. So you're but what about when it's actually a joke like Aki and his steam cheese stuff?
Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah, the method makes me crazy when people are just trying to get attention. And then with uh especially if it involves the burger.
One of my worst, my my least favorite ones, the worst one, is the mac and cheeseburger. Because the photo looks amazing because it's this cheesy pile of mac and cheese, and then there's a burger, juicy, dripping burger underneath. And you what you see is your brain says, oh wow, but you you see them separately. Mac and cheese, burger. You put them in your mouth and they go together, and it's a disaster.
It is this should not be happening. Hot pasta should not be in your mouth the same time you're biting into a you know a juicy burger. I'm sure Nastasi agrees with you. Do you agree with them, Nastasia? Yes, I do.
Good. But I also I know the guy who invented it, and he said he just did it as a stunt for the restaurant. Is that where the idea of stunt burger came from? That what they him saying it was a stunt? Well, I think they existed before that, but just before that.
I mean, this was like the beginning of sort of the Instagram food influencer garbage going on. So, how much do you hate like I stuffed it with foie gras and then I put gold leaf and then I'll yeah, it's it's to me it's usually a nightmare. Yeah, it's not never good, it's never a good thing. You know what I've never had that got very famous, but people said they actually liked it was the uh was the stunt poutine from uh Pied de Couchon where it's like foie gras and all that stuff on it. But I don't think I don't think it's my I don't think it needs it.
You don't need it. I bet you loves that stuff? The guy behind me, John. That was very good. I liked it a lot.
Poutine as a dish itself, I mean, does not need to be improved, usually. That's the thing. I'm sorry. It's one of those to me, I'd rather you also what happens in the world of burgers, especially for me. I I eat a lot of burgers, and for me, I want to make sure that I have you know, I'm I'm trying and and loving and testing daily beaters, I call them, which basically means something you're gonna go back and get tomorrow, next week.
Some burgers that are stunt burgers that have truffle oils and all this crap in it, you're not gonna have it a month from now. You wouldn't even have it once a year. Why would you want to make that burger? Yeah. Just for this for the stunt of it, it doesn't make any sense.
To me, I want to make sure I'm I'm experimenting and uh with I'm cooking, or at least going to visit burgers that are daily beaters that are classics that have one or two ingredients that are not huge that you won't eat. I had my lifetime supply of truffle oil in the late 90s to early aughts, and I don't ever need it again. Somebody like dropped some in my elevator the other day, and I was like, oh it's intense. Yeah. I just don't I just don't require it.
Like, you know? It it has its place, but it's a very it's very narrow place, unfortunately. Yeah. It doesn't belong in everything. Definitely not on my burger.
And not on my elevator. Your elevator floor, that's for sure. One of the places I worked, they garnished the short rib with white truffle oil, and the expo did it, and he had never tasted it, and I just saw him like drown it on it. I was like, stop. Have you ever tasted this?
And he's like, No, it need tastes a little bit. And he's like, Oh wow, I've been doing really bad. You know what I like on a burger? You probably hate fish sauce. No, okay.
On a burger, it's good. Yeah, I'm sure it is. You don't have to like it, but it's still good. Oh. No, fish sauce is a mummy.
I mean, that's it. Yeah, check this. See, we I I wanted to get a professional opinion, and you are a professional. So, like uh in the in in the book, you have a couple of uh secret sauces that uh, you know, you're they're like most secret sauces are thousand island, but then you bring up other people like what the schnack sauce and goop and all these other things. Yeah.
So like uh I like a flavored mayonnaise. It's not flavored with the standard. This is one of my favorites. We use this at uh at existing conditions, but not on burgers because we didn't have a burger. This is like I use Indian oil-based pickles as my secret powder pow.
Wow. This is this this is by the way, is expired, so you know. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't matter. You're making me taste it like it's expired.
And this is let's say, yeah, oh, it's oh no, no, it only expired in 2021. That's fine. That's fine. What is it though? Tomatoes.
Is it fermented? Yeah. Wow, okay. So I'm gonna try this if I die. It's very strong.
If you die tomorrow, it's on me. It's good, right? Mix that with mayonnaise? Yeah, okay burger. Is it spicy?
No, Molly. Mildly spicy. That's pretty well. Where's this from? India.
That's intense. Oh, great. I just said Indian food that was expired two years ago. Well, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. John, you've had this before. Yeah, yeah. I had my own jar. Go ahead.
Everyone try it. Imagine that with mayonnaise. Actually, we're good. It's very, it's it's intense. Yeah, it's concentrated.
I like that. But not goopy. Not goopy, no. And it doesn't loosen the mayonnaise too much. I'm not a sauce guy.
I know you said that in the book. To me, grease is a condiment. So talk to me about you as not a sauce guy. You uh you put a little section at the end of your book about non-American burgers, some of them heavily sauced. Talk to me about this Turkish burger.
Look, I'm just my my job, I'm a steward to history. I'm just trying to get it right. Get the get the all if they have crazy ingredients. People are eating them all the time. But you've never been there and had it, but you have friends who have, and you've tested this recipe on them, and they say you're getting close to the actual Turkish wet burger.
The Islaq burger. Yeah. It's spectacular. And I've made that for friends at parties. I've made it for my family.
It is it is a great hamburger experience. And it's soaked in tomato goop. What is it? No, it's basically basically imagine a tomato sauce with way, way too much garlic in it. That's basically that's that's you're on the right path, basically.
But it's wet, but you still pick it up. Uh you yeah, you do pick it up. It's wrapped, it's coming uh you it's a street food. You buy it at you know, one o'clock in the morning in Taksim Square in Istanbul. That's where that's where you find pretty much only.
It's it's it's uh that's the only spot where it really is. You are also a not a fan of most burgers that require a knife and fork. Right. I think that it should be a handheld experience. I mean, the whole point of a hamburger is to be portable.
When the hamburger was born in the US, because it came to the to the U.S. as the um as uh uh ethnic food from Germany, but it was served on a plate with a knife and a fork. And so at some point it did make its way to the Midwest, where it became uh fair food. And the first fair food that was well, we understand one of the very first fair foods that was portable was the hot dog. Yeah.
You imagine if you were selling yeah. Imagine if you were if you were, you know, selling this this dish that was this this famous ethnic dish from Germany, but served on a plate, and all of a sudden you saw a hot dog walk by, you'd say, Oh, maybe I okay, we need this needs to be portable. Yeah. And that's how it happened. Well, so now's a good time.
Quinn said there came in in a question, the hamburger used to be small and it's gotten bigger, which is something we need to talk about. Quinn, what was the question we got in off the Patreon? Well, yeah, the question from Rob was uh c wanting George's comment on uh the origin of the slider, you know, vis-a-vis white manna versus White Castle or any sort of similar New Jersey versus Ohio. Well, that's pretty simple. Uh they're both actually technically at one point they were identical.
White man and and white castle were identical burgers. The only difference was that White Castle began to innovate, they started changing a lot and they started moving towards you know, uh freezing of beef and and um the standardized of standardized buns and all that, uh, and they got away from the what really should be a great burger. The difference is that when White Castle started in 1920, 1921, there were a lot of copycats. And white manna is one of those copycats. So if you imagine white manna just kept doing the same thing all the way through.
So it technically, in effect, they are the primary source version of the White Castle slider. So was White Castle, I haven't had one in like 20 years. Are they still they were, in my recollection, kind of like kind of wet and square with like little onion y bits on them? Were they always that way? No.
In the beginning, there were actually in the beginning they were like white uh white manna. So round. Yeah. Round, small and griddled, not this weird in-betweener situation. If you were trying to sell a burger in America a hundred years ago, literally a hundred years ago, and you didn't put the word white in the name of your burger place, you weren't gonna sell burger.
Because of filth. Because of it was all about purity. It was all about it was a very, you know, hamburgers at that point were seen as dirty, like you know, wage earner food. It wasn't anything that was was you know popular. It wasn't anything that was it wasn't uh it wasn't something that was seen as as clean at all.
Yeah, yeah. Proving we've always been bad. Um so uh all right, and also uh, well, before I leave Connecticut entirely, sure. Because John and I, before you know we're going to get a sandwich for a minute, we're like, we're just gonna make this whole show about Connecticut burgers. We're like, it's our show, crap on everyone else.
I don't care. I can do this whole show on Connecticut Burgers, you know, without blinking. And so the last one, uh, and I'm you know, not in here, but I want to get your opinion on it. The shady Glenn Bernice uh cheeseburger. Yeah, the Bernice special.
Do you know how to make one? Because that's the one burger that I have miserably failed at trying to make at home, even a close representation of the Bernice. So the where you're talking about is the uh it has almost like a cheese crown on top. Yeah, we call it cheese wings in my house. Cheese wings, you call it wings, looks like it looks like a nun's habit.
Yeah, flying nun for those of you that area. Yeah, yeah. Sally Field, yeah. Sally Field or Flying Nun hat. Uh it's basically the same look.
And uh from what I understand is a scientifically developed cheese. We don't know if it's cheddar American, it could be something between the two. We don't exactly know, but they said that we can't tell you our secrets because it's a secret, obviously. But it's also that the flat top they're cooking on is highly seasoned. And it's I'm pretty sure it's a black steel flat top.
So it's nothing that's too complicated and large. And they have to make the they put four slices of cheese centered on the burger, and obviously all this cheese hangs off and they curl up the cheese as it's cooking. And it's one of the things you the first thing you learn when you're when you're on when you're on the griddle and you're young is to is to how to make this Bernie special. Yeah, and it's there's like it it's an exact amount of like freaketizing of bubbling, and then you see them lift it, they hold it for a second, let go, and it sits, and then they they and they're really good at it. Yeah, they're good.
Yeah, you don't know you don't even do the cheat all you can also get the cheese crisps separately as a side dish. It's an off menu item. He he lived there, and there's also you they make I guess decent ice cream, although I get my ice cream at Yukon. Yeah, but shading glass ice cream is good. Very good ice cream, very good ice cream and creepy murals.
What else do you want? The mural in the wall is beyond creepy. It's weird, phantasmagorical, you know, dream of burgers and ice creams and and little elderly. It's very straight. Yeah, and all the all the people in the place are dressed up in like, you know, 60s, 70s, like Ramada in style, like, you know, service uniforms.
It's like a it is a throwback. It is definitely a throwback, yeah. It's it's lost in time. So that's what we think about it. They also have a very good Kaiser roll.
So whatever you think of the burger, their Kaiser was on point. Do you like the burger? Do you like the cheese wing? I think it's a great burger. Um it's I wouldn't put it in the top 10, you know, but it's it's more about the experience.
It's a great hamburger experience in my book. Yeah. So worth worth if you happen to be near Manchester. I don't know why the heck you would be near Manchester, Connecticut. But if you happen to be near Manchester, it's a drive-thru on the way to Boston.
I mean, I guess we're gonna go off the highway. Get some ice cream or whatever, unless you have time to go to Yukon and go to the dairy, the dairy store and get the dairy barn or whatever they call it. All right. Uh Fucci writes in Wait, is this your dad? Yeah.
Damn it. You gotta hide it, Quinn. Hide it. Anyway, you don't have to hide it. He's allowed to ask whatever.
He's a patron. He's allowed to ask whatever questions he wants, man. Regardless. I'm just messing with you. Come on.
Uh question from Mr. Moats. Uh, when is a burger not a burger? And we've talked a little bit about that, but when is a burger not a burger? Well, for starters, a hamburger needs to be defined as chopped beef cooked somehow and served on bread.
That's it. That's the definition of a burger. And when you get away from that is when you start to do things like use uh tuna or turkey. Because a turkey burger is not a burger. Don't make turkey burgers.
It's a turkey sandwich, yeah. Listen, don't do it. Do you remember what I do? It better not be with turkey burgers because unless you're gonna unless you're gonna low temp those things, unless you're gonna go through all the trouble of low temping it so that it's not an overcooked piece of filth, and then somehow get a nice sear on the outside of it. Like I don't want to hear from a turkey burger, I don't want to hear from a salmon burger.
It's not ideal. Yeah, I do a poultry burger of chicken, chicken hearts, and duck fat trimmings. Okay, well, uh ground poultry can be fine, right? Yeah, you know, like I like a chicken patty sandwich. But it sounds more like it, like um like a crab cake to me.
Yeah, that's so if you're gonna go salmon, just get a croquette. Just get a croquet. No filler. Well, a good crab cake has very little filler, also. Oh, you just got busted.
Um but like but I will say, Quinn, that like the average turkey burger isn't just bad, it's a bad idea. You're taking something that needs to be cooked until it is terrible and then doing that. Right. To be, I mean, to be uh absolutely pure about this, uh hamburg, uh hamburgers came from Hamburg, Germany. That's why they're called hamburgers.
They didn't come from shrimp burg. Shrimp burg. Or turkey burg. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
They came from hamburg. And well, so think about this, right? Also, people who make turkey burgers, no offense to you people out there who make turkey burgers, but people who make turkey burgers typically do it for quote unquote health reasons. So they make the compounding error of using breast meat. And the only way to have a uh uh it not viciously overcooked and yet still get it cooked enough so you're not like, am I gonna get poisoned?
Right, is to salt it. And then if you salt it so that it keeps the moisture inside, you're gonna bind the proteins as you make the patty. And then you have dry turkey meatloaf. Not not even a dry turkey burger. Dry turkey meatloaf, which it just gets worse and worse and worse.
It's just like the more you think about it, the more now ground, look, ground chick, there's nothing better than a chicken heart. Like when you go to one of those Brazilian places and you get like skewer after skewer after skewer of chicken heart, I can eat that all day. Right, exactly. You know what I mean? But like, and um I will taste your burger if I'm ever there made with the the the chicken heart and the duck fat.
But I'm just saying turkey burger, I've never had one I've liked. I I agree. I agree. To me, it's it's I mean, it just shouldn't be in the same category. It should be in the category of the crab cake or or the you know the shrimp sandwich, whatever those things are called.
Shrimp cake, shrimp, shrimp pies. I don't know. Shrimp. You know what's good? Seafood salad.
See what salad's good, but it's not a burger. It's definitely not a burger, but it it it is good. Well, George, can you say your burger definition one more time? Burger definition. Very very straightforward.
It's chopped beef, cooked somehow, served on bread. Period. Okay. Well, so you have things in here you don't consider if it's loose, like that loose meat, not a burger. But I do say in the book, though, the loose meat sandwich is in the hamburger family.
Hamburger family. Well, there's a reason why. You take a bite of the loose loose meat sandwich and it has the flavor profile of a hamburger. See, I don't consider a patty melt a hamburger because I consider it a burgerloid because to me it is so important that it is its own thing. This is true.
I think it's still it's it's very it's much closer to the burger family than the loose meat sandwich. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a good thing. Well, loose meat sandwich is only only loosely a sandwich. Right, exactly.
Exactly. It's closer to a hamburger. Right. But the patty melt, the patty melt, which by the way, you know, you mentioned that in the original edition that you you allowed yourself some liberties and you go back, is only rye bread. Like I like my the the real question is how cooked do you like your onions?
And then Swiss cheese and the hamburger. And like how quite the question is how do you like your onions cooked, right? That that there is debate, no? Oh, yeah. But there's a lot of different ways to slice and cook an onion for sure.
But to me, the patty melt is the marriage of a grilled cheese and a hamburger. And so it is it is in both families and it is its own freaking thing. And it's to me, God's it's it's God's thing. Like, but it's also it's also Swiss. Swiss cheese.
It's rye bread. I mean, the the flavor profile is very different from an actual hamburger. And I grew up with them, and I didn't know it was an LA thing until I read in the book. Because my mom grew up, you know, outside of LA. Maybe that's why because I grew up with them.
Yeah. So you I grew up with something that was called a patty melt by some people. Some people called it a Chester, because it was a guy in my hometown named Chester, who took a hamburger patty when he was 17 years old and put it in between two pieces of uh bread with some American cheese and called it Chester, which actually was we found it later on was actually uh the setup from Friendlies. I don't know if you knew that also. No.
So they could they didn't they they don't even call it a patty melt at Friendlies, it's called the setup. Uh huh. And they use those weird flower-shaped burgers still at friendlies? I don't know. Friendlies used to use these very odd flower-shaped burgers, but uh a friend of mine who, well, she lived on my block when I was in high school.
She worked at the Friendlies and she told me that the Fribble Fribble is a friendlies uh shake. Now, I'm not saying anything negative about the Friendlies Corporation. This was in 1987, people. All right. So the information I'm giving you is way out of date, but they had a carpenter ant infestation in the Fribble machine in my hometown in the in the 1980s, 1980, you know, whatever it was, four or five.
And so like I just stopped going to Friendlies as a result. So it's I haven't had one of those flower-shaped burger things since then. Yeah, I I haven't probably had a burger there in forever. I I've gone there for the Fribble recently, but not for a burger, that's for sure. I'm sure they've kicked the carpenter ant problem where at whatever location you went to.
Good. Yeah. I'm I'm pretty sure. Good. Quinn, did we answer this question uh appropriately for your dad or no?
Sure, yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. Uh from Justin.
Hey George, what's the uh you don't have to answer this, but you know, we want to know, but you don't have to. Sometimes people hate answering this question, right? What a great preamble. Yeah. What's the worst burger you've ever encountered?
Ooh. Wow. I've had a lot of bad burgers out there. I don't like to talk about the I don't go negative on burgers ever. I because you're hurting someone's business, maybe.
I used to do this thing where I would, you know, if if I tweet on the way in and I don't tweet on the way out, it wasn't any good. That's one of those. But I don't tweet anymore. Changed that's all changed. But usually I don't really talk about burgers I don't like.
People know unfortunately there are a lot of bad burgers out there. And I like to like to tell people that, you know, if I'm not talking about it, you know, that's the worst review I can give the damn burgers. So sorry about that. Okay, so what makes a burger bad? Which when you see something, you're like, oh no, to hell with this.
What is it? You can tell right away when someone gives you a burger and they they don't have their heart in it. You know, right, yeah, you know, it's like any other food, but it's especially with a hamburger. Hamburgers are relatively easy to make. Yeah, you know, they're that's this is not not much going on there.
You've got some ground beef, you've got some bread, you've got some maybe some cheese, maybe a topping or two, and that's it, right? This shouldn't be that complicated. But the reality is that you can screw all those elements up pretty quickly. Overcooking beef is a big way to do it. Using the wrong beef.
I mean, people a lot of times we'll use beef that's way too lean, and that makes a dried out crappy burger. You're a truck, you're a chuck fellow. I I like chuck a lot. Yeah. I usually when I cook, I usually 7525 chuck when I cook.
If I tell people that you want to err on the side of, you know, not an 80-20, 75-25. I'm a personally, it's 7525 is is is tough to work with sometimes. You have to know what you're doing. It shrinks it shrinks a lot. Yeah, you're cooking it fast.
I mean, it's very important to know that the fat content is flavor. Um 8020 is a great place to go. You take if you take an entire chuck of the two parts of a chuck and throw it into a grinder, you can have basically 8020, maybe 7525, depending on how fatty that animal was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. You know what I hate? I hate that uh so I hate that the most places that sell uh the beef, they assume that if you want good quality beef, you also want it leaner. Mistake.
Right. Anyway. That's kind of changing, I think, these days. Oh uh Wolf writes in, I like how Wolf has only two choices and not like three or four other choices. The quick you must choose between a potato bun or a brioche bun, as my son calls it brioche.
That's the Italian version. Yeah, yeah. What do you think? So like there's no question about it. Brioche can suck it as far as I'm concerned.
Sorry. Oh, wow. Yeah. Brioche brioche is not the right bun for a burger. Wow.
It's too sweet. Usually it's it's almost too soft. I mean it's hard. Too soft. Come on now.
You like a squishy bun, yeah, so you say. Well, so I mean, I'm sorry, that it's brioches tend to be a little more aerated. Too poofy. Too poof. Yeah, because I mean, when I mean square you know, white squishy, I mean it's it still has some density to it.
Like the potato roll has density to it. It's good. Most most white, you know, white white bread and white rolls, enriched rolls for hamburgers, are great for a burger. Um unfortunately brioche is too sweet. Yeah.
Uh it's too poofy. So you also don't like a Hawaiian. I don't like Hawaiian, but no. No, people are using a lot of Hawaiian now for burger. It's just it's too sweet.
I like Hawaiian rolls for sure. I just don't like to put burger. So you also know you don't like the the the move of using the the Portuguese sweet roll for uh for a hamburger. I've seen that really. No, I think it should when you when you take a bite of a burger, there should be a the first thing you smell should be a little bit of yeast.
English muffin? English muffin, actually, that's a good one. That's a very good that they're very sturdy. And I actually I mean, you know, I grew up on I grew up on the Chester, which was the you know the patty melt version of what we had from you know from Long Island. But also uh I grew up on uh most of the burgers are served were served back then on English muffins.
Yeah, I like an English muffin. But they so you you mentioned that you enjoy and you uh you know you invoke uh the uh the the Josh Ozerski from the from the past who had some very interesting, sometimes wildly incorrect, sometimes maddening opinions about things. Oh, yeah. Tell me that. Yeah.
Um, but uh a fun guy to hang around with, especially if you were eating meat. But the um the toasting the bun is almost always a good idea, you say. And but uh toast one side only, because you don't want the top side, you don't want the side that you're handling toasted, just the meat side toasted. But you know, but you and in the book you're anti-toaster because you do a lot of griddle and stuff. What about that you don't like the bagel setting?
I always use bagel setting. Isn't it cook on one only cooks on one side? Bagel side top only. Yeah. So you like all the new toasters.
Put the put the bagel bagel setting on my toaster. That sounds kind of wow. Now I'm a fruit for all of a sudden I'm a frufroo guy. I think you'd rather just, I mean, just take you you're already cooking in a pan. Just cook the.
I would I tell people if you're gonna make a bunch of burgers, toast the buns first in the pan, and then cook the burgers in the same pan. One piece of equipment. All right. Also, yeah, but I mean I have it all going at the same time in my house anyway. But anyway, but the other thing is you're like, I can't really taste the seeds.
And then you show a picture of a sesame bun with like two sesame on it. Like Sesame seeds, they can't are they are you I mean, really. I mean, we taste them, it's more of a uh textural thing, I think, than it is an actual flavor. Like I use a lot of sesame. Oh, speaking of potato, you know, there's uh now a uh there's a non Martin.
So Homer Murray came on the show uh a little while back, and you know, he stopped using Martin's. And so he's now created. I haven't been out to have it yet. I want to have his the new potato roll? Yeah, yeah.
He has it, he has uh made to his spec, uh I forget what the name of the bakery is, but yeah, they do the potato. My only issue with potato rolls is that they they go from they go from fully blonde to real brown very quickly. You know what I mean? Like when you're cooking them? Yeah.
Like they brown up quick and they can go over in a toaster on bagel setting. Maybe not. Maybe not. I don't have that. I don't I just have uh one setting, it's on.
Yeah, all right. Uh Bruce Blinkstein writes in. Seems like there were a ton of burger trends in the last 10 years, more so than then 10 years before that. What does the burger look like over the next 10 years? I believe there's going to be a uh a uh thinning, put it that way, of all those things happening.
There's already there's already pushback against stunt burgers. Uh there's already a pushback even against Smash Burgers, which I think is ridiculous. Because Smash Burger, people think that oh, I I was standing next to a guy talking to his girlfriend the other day, and he was or whoever she was, and he was saying, uh, oh, the Smash Burger thing is a it's a trend, it's a new thing. I want to smack the guy. And he doesn't he had no sense of history or uh or any pride about the American hamburger and where that may have come from.
And we know at this point it's over a hundred years old for sure. Um so we'll see. I I do believe that the Smash Burger trend will fade, but the Smash Burger itself will stick around. It's been around anyway for a long time. So I've never had your the the Oklahoma style onion smash burger that you have.
I've had so many people come to me like have you had George's burger or whatever. I'm like, no. I haven't been to like Yeah, they always do. I've like I've never been to wherever Aspen or wherever you were freaking doing them, like you know, when you first started pushing that crap, because I don't get invited to that anymore. Stuff, good stuff.
Come on, man. Or like, but like everyone's like, yeah, yeah. You know, people like food editors, they're like, have you had it? Have you had them? No.
So like uh I should I should have it, huh? That to you, that's the money burger. Well, to me, the onions are for pretty much the they are probably the very first condiment. And so to me, I'm not just making this burger because it tastes great, which it does by the way, but it is a bit of a science experiment based on very few ingredients. It's only five ingredients in the burger.
It's basically beef, uh, cheese, bun, onion, salt, and that's it. And somehow some weird science, no pepper, some weird science goes on there where the beef fat mixes with the rendered onion onion juice and some thyme. And you Yeah, there it is. I can hear it. Yeah.
Time the unit of measure, not time the spice. Right, time unit of measure. Yeah, definitely don't put any time in there. Yeah. But you put in you put in the time to cook it slowly.
But not thyme. Not thyme, yeah. Yeah. And it cooks at a very very specific pace. It's slow.
It's not a not a fast, not a not like shh shh fast cooking. Well, a lot of the burgers actually, you give timings, and it's interesting. I'm sure they're based on observation of what they're doing, but they're longer than I would expect on a lot of these cases. It's true, yeah. A lot of the the book is based on method, not on toppings.
I like to tell people that, you know, this you can buy any burger book out there and it's gonna show you what toppings to put on to make it a Tex Max burger, Hawaiian burger, you know. But the reality is that these are all based on historically seen. Spoiler, George wants you to go out and put pineapple rings on everything. I'm just kidding. I'm just I'm just I'm just affin with you.
No. Yeah. Uh okay, so let's do a couple of method things before I, because we're gonna run out of time. I want to rapid fire on some of these other burgers. One, uh like all people who are thinking people, you in general don't salt until the till the very end.
But you usually only salt one side, even on like a thing. I've always been a too salt, or when I do like a uh, you know, uh a ball, I'll like kind of roll it in salt right before I smash it, but you only do the one side. Do you not like a salty burger? Do you post salt? You don't salt on the flip either, right?
So on your onion burger, it's like you salt, you you salt, no, smash, salt, onion, flip, right? That's what you know, wait, wait. Close. It's usually I put the ball down, salt the ball. Right.
And the golf ball size of onion. And then onions on top of that. Yeah. And then I smash the whole thing together. Right.
So also what happens is the salt kind of goes around the outside. It ends up in sort of what happens. I make a lot of burgers at a time. Like I'll do an event, I'll make 18 burgers on the griddle at every single, every, every 10, 15 minutes or so. So what happens is that environment becomes salty.
Right. It's almost like it's like the steamed cheeseburger. I mean, you have this, you have to have the environment going to make the best burgers. And a little bit of the onions from before get on the next burger? No, no, they're all scraped off.
All right. But still, but the the salt duh salt from one patty ends up on the other patty and it all gets mixed up. It's I think it's just sort of a science experiment that works somehow. So right, only salt once. And that's a non-toasted bun, that one.
That's exactly right. So I like to call it letting it ride, which is where the burger bun sits on top of the flip patty. Both of them. Both of them on top of each other. Well, it's just so you know where you don't have to lose, you don't lose the bottom somewhere.
Right, but you but you say it also helps it. It does help it. Softens up the bottom. Definitely sell both both sides. Um the bottom you don't want to have too soft because it'll fall apart.
The top you want to have soft for sure. So you're not toasting it at all. And my burger, I don't toast it. So there's all that beef steam is rising up and it's being stopped by by the bun. Is that your next band?
Beef steam? Beef beef steam, yeah. That's that's yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh all right.
Another thing I find interesting is that you're a fan of the loose bowl scoop for non-compression reasons, but then you do it even when you're gonna smash the burger. Why? Just more of the monk stuff, more of the just this is the way I do. No, uh d exactly. Maybe it's more of the monk stuff, but it's it's for portioning.
So if I'm making a lot, if I'm making a hundred burgers, I want to make sure I've got all they're all the same size. Right. So we but it doesn't actually, in other words, like I'm not damaging the meat by like hard packing if I'm hard packing into a scoop. If I'm doing hard pack draw drop, I'm not gonna, I'm not messing it up if I'm gonna smash it anyway. Define hard.
Well, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like if you're giving it to the bigger one. Joshua Zerski used to like worry the hell about it. He either wanted the burgers so freaking loose that they were basically untenable, or he wanted them smashed till they were till they were dead. Exactly.
Uh but you uh this I mean, so much has changed and the understanding of how to make a smash burger since then. Right. Love Josh. Josh Josh is a Josh is a good friend of mine. Josh, by the way, he used to have, he told me, he said, I have your your book by my bedside.
I read it every night before I go to bed. Yeah. I like that. It's only pictures. I don't know.
So uh so another uh question on uh technique about going back to the salt. Anyway, as we've said before, if you salt and if you then mix, you're the devil, right? Obviously, because it turns into meatloaf. Yeah. But you are very careful about not putting salt on to the last minute for it not getting tough, except teriyaki burgers obviously soaked in salt.
So how does that taste? Okay, the teraki burger, which is in the book, is I tucked, I like to tell people it's the most difficult, it's the hardest burger to make in the book because it's it involves method and it involves you know making sauces and and marinating, it's very difficult. But again, I'm just again, I'm a steward to history. My job is to make sure we get it raised. You think they taste good?
They don't taste like meatloaf, they're not tough. No, no, they're they're not tough because they're marinated. But they're marin. Right. So my point is that can you salt it beforehand as long as you don't manipulate as soon as you manipulate salted meat, yeah, it gets tear it gets anyway.
Yeah, I just do it because it's that's the way that they do it. Well, the Cuban uh the the burger from uh Miami with the chorizo spices, interesting. Is that the way they actually do it? They put just the spices, no salt on the inside of the meat, or were you like, oh hell no, I'm not putting any salt on the inside. Do they use actual chorizo?
They don't know. They use chorizo spices. So it's paprika and it's garlic. But no salt and salt on the outside. I don't know.
I think I did salt on the outside of mine. I'm not sure the salt in the mix. There's not. There's not well in your book. Yeah.
Yeah, I I probably tested it it was too much. All right. Now, uh people need a trick to not have burgers stick to the spatula when they do the smash. What is the magic and now onions I'm sure help? But like, for instance, the the uh the fried cheeseburger, is that any good?
The grease, the 90-year old grease burger from diet. It's great. Yeah, yeah. It's wonderful. Is it?
Yeah. I do I actually it is a great burger. It's a great hamburger experience. Pound it out and then uh dropped into uh, you know, deep into grease. Well, beef beef tellow.
Grease on grease on grease. Yeah. Uh I don't know how the heck that doesn't stick to their spatula because they don't have parchment like protection or anything like that. Right. But like I use parchment in my house when I smash because I'm terrified of it sticking to my spatula.
What what do you got for me? Well the parchment parchment's great if you have a small pan. You can't you have no you have no place to go. If you what I'm saying is if you actually do have a place to go, if you put the spatula on the flat top and you move it around a bit and get it hot and then smash the burger. Because a hot spatula won't stick to the beef.
Oh, because the grease lubricates it? It's cold on cold. Ah, this is a tip. If you've gotten nothing else out of this show, all right. Now in the next two minutes and thirty seconds, let's go.
Oh, by the way, next week we have uh the Tropical Standard Crew on for so get your uh get your tropical drink questions in. Uh we're not gonna have time to make fun of Barburton chicken. I apologize, I'm gonna have to ask you these things. Uh okay. Um poach burgers at Pete's Wisconsin.
Now, you have a recipe for this. For those of you that don't know, I'll give you the real quick. It's a big pan of water with a pile of onions in it, and then you're basically putting you're smashing the burger into the water. Yeah. And so it's like part panned but part poached.
It good? Oh, fantastic. What if you used like French onion soup mix as your as your poaching base? You'd probably be too salty, but other than the salt, like if you didn't salt it too much. In other words, like well, there's lots of salted onion soup mixes.
Well, I mean, in other words, what if you made an onion broth? Because it like part of the thing about Pete's is they're making a billion of them a day. So by the time the thing is done, it's onion broth. Yeah, yeah. And you even say the second third's gonna be better, but what about you pre-make it?
Yeah. I want you to drank some hot dog water. Fantastic. Tastes like hot dogs. It's like hot dogs, right?
Exactly. So that's why it tastes so great. Is that one of the burgers to try though? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah, it's a great burger. All right. So you can read about how to make that in uh the in the juicy Lucy, you give some tricks for them not to have the cheese explode in your face. Yes, it's true. There is some science to that.
Is that they will explode in your face if you don't poke little holes in the top. Yeah, two pick, toothpick. Uh all right. Now, the goober burger with peanut butter, I now want to try this. It's good, the melted peanut butter.
Oh, yeah, salty goodness. And then the fluff, the fluff screamer is hot sauce and meat, a meat-based hot sauce, which is similar to Rochester's quote unquote hot sauce. It's a hot dogs ground up with spice. Hot dogs, yeah. Hot dogs ground up with spice.
Whole country. Uh with marshmallow fluff on it. What about the combination? Would it work? The fluffer nutter burger.
Have you tried it? It would work. It would be amazing, actually. Because the fluff turns off the heat in the hot sauce. The hot sauce alone, the screamer sauce, is very freaking hot.
You don't put cheese on a bacon avocado burger? That's like the standard in my house. You hate it? The look on your face, like it's like the look on your face. That's that's like a tuna milkshake.
I don't know about it. Uh talk to me a little bit. We have very little time left. Garjulo's burger at uh at Brennan and Carr. Is this something I've never been there?
Is it worth getting on the subway and scraping my butt out there? Oh, yeah. It's all everything they make everything in-house. It's all fresh. It's fantastic.
I usually get a cup of broth to go. It's it's halfway between a French dip and a hamburger. Basically, yeah. And it's money? It's oh, it's amazing.
Yeah. Make sure you get the onions. All right, right. And uh last but not least, I think the swine and cheese in Houston. You know my butcher who was from Staten Island in the 90s used to grind bacon into my hamburger meat for me.
I'd have him grind it, and he used to do it just that was his special thing. It works. Yeah. But in other words, like I didn't I didn't know that it was a uh I didn't know that there was an uncommon thing. Yeah, it was a friend of mine on the West Coast is doing it for his burgers, uh, Mark Tripp.
He's doing his his he sells burgers uh, you know, pop-up on the street. And he's doing uh, he does a uh blend of bacon in his meat it's fantastic my butcher always used to be like uh I shouldn't really do it because I'm contaminating my my uh grinder but hell with it you know what I mean like he's for standing on okay uh last thing the slug burger with the bread crumbs do I need to try this so it's a uh Mississippi based oh yes and it's a four to one I did the math it's a four to one four beef one bread crumb mix it in salt obviously mix it in so it's breadcrumbs are all in the meat mix yeah but it's not a meatloaf alloy it's an actual burger well because you're smashing it thin it's a thin patty so what's happening is the grease is soaking up into those bread crumbs and then crisping up it is an absolutely perfect hamburger experience. Alright so that's one to try at home oh yeah that's it's also super easy. So if you want to make any of these burgers please go get uh the great American burger book expanded and updated edition uh from George Motes we're super happy to have you on I'll answer the rest of you guys questions about like waffle irons and whatnot next week cooking issues thanks for coming on thanks for having me
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