Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of my night and Rockefeller Center, New York City New Stand Studios brought to you by the Emu Farmers of North America. No, we're not actually. Uh right now in the studio, we're waiting on George Motz, who's gonna come here and talk about hamburger America, both the restaurant and the book in a couple of minutes. In the meantime, I got Joe Hazenrocking the panels.
What's up? Hey, welcome to the show. Sorry for the delay. Hey, no worries. I got uh John chilling in the great state of Connecticut.
How you doing? We'll try to only briefly talk about Connecticut hamburgers today, because we've covered and smothered that sucker on this uh show many times. How you doing, John? Doing great. Feeling better?
Yeah, feeling better. Good, good, good. All right, in the upper left-hand corner, Mr. Emu himself. We got Quinn.
How you doing? Oh boy. Uh uh I thought that was Mr. Gelato, no, like Mr. Emu.
No, that's just emu. Now, like all your gelatos are made with emu, all your omelets are made with emu. Everything's only emu. That's all you got on that island is Pamela Anderson and Emu. I guess that's just a good thing.
For those of you that I was only kidding, we're not. We get no money from any emu farmers. Just be clear. We are not sponsored by the emu. I mean, I don't know.
If you be if you bring it in, if you bring it in, you get a chunk. You know what I'm saying? You get some free emu eggs out of it. You know what I mean? Uh, we got uh down there in Los Angeles, Anastasia the Hammer Lopez.
How you doing? I'm good. Thank you. Good. And uh Jackie Molecules.
What's up, Miss Here the Molecule? Yo, recovering from I guess pneumonia, but uh doing fine. Ooh, Dax had pneumonia recently. Guess what, dude? When you get yourself a virus, take the Tamil flu.
Take the Tamuflu so that you don't get pneumonia. Did you first have a virus, and then after the virus you got like a bacterial pneumonia. Is that what happened? They don't even know. They uh they just hit me with all the antibiotics and said, I don't know, and that's probably pneumonia take this.
So yeah, Dax had like uh you know diagnosed with a chest x-ray pneumonia, but because they didn't get him to Tama flu, they're like, eh. I mean, this, you know, you could get queasy with the Tam flu, and the only you know side effects of not getting it is pneumonia. You know, you know what I mean? So it was like, it's pretty rough. Um, anyways.
Uh all right. So before George gets here, we can talk about uh our weekend review. I'll give you mine real quick. Last Thursday, uh, I was going to see the five almost five-hour long Wagner opera, Tristan uh und Isolde at uh Lincoln Center, which was great. You know, it had been very positively reviewed by the New York Times, etc.
etc. Fantastic. But it's a million years long. It goes from 6 30 to 11 40 at night with two intermissions. It's nuts.
By the way, people now and operas think that they could take off their shoes like they're at an aeroplane. So my seat came with a side order of foot stench that was like, I was like, what the hell, dude? First of all, don't take your shoes off on an airplane, but definitely don't take your shoes off at the opera. You know what I mean? No.
Anyway, but before that, uh Karen Stanley, Nastasia, and uh, you know, my good friend Karen Stanley, who used to be a manager at existing conditions and at um, you know, uh Dutch Kills and all that, who's now the uh head bar McGilla at Tatiana's, one of the finest restaurants in in uh this here city, uh told us to come in, got us in on like a day's notice for like a full meal at Tatiana's beforehand. So we were we were rolled out of there uh on a you know in a barrel and then went to enjoy our four and a half hours of opera, but had a really good time at Tatiana's, and that is my weekend review. What do you fools have? Easter ham. Oh, oh yeah, I forgot.
I forgot it was easter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My mom did I did Easter at my mom's.
So like we had a big lamb, but we didn't have ham. Talk to me about the ham. What did you get honey baked or did you get a different ham? Didn't get that one, but got uh one from D'Artagnan. What they had at the big Y around us, the supermarket.
And that's so Connecticut, dude. The big Y. Oh they had was D'Artagnan. Yep, exactly. Yeah.
Did you did you have to put on a monocle to buy it? I wish. No, no, no. And it came down there. But um yeah, it came out really well.
Did it as you suggested in the water bag for a couple hours and then just threw in the oven at 500 to crisp up the outside with the glaze and everything? That was delicious. That's the way. That's the way. Did D'Artagnan spiral it or no?
Yes, they did. Nice. I wish they could figure out a way to spiral all the way down to the end. So you always have that part at the end, but I guess you're gonna use that for soup anyway. You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. Now here's a question. As a francophile, when you take the warm uh still warm meat and you put it into a bag to put back in the fridge because you haven't finished the whole thing, and it forms that gele like thing around the knuckle on the bottom. What like commingle with fat? Do you scrape it off and pitch it or do you use that?
I scrape it off, throw it in the pan that I heat up and then put other ham cuttings in the crisp up. I see. I see. Nice. All right.
What about you other fools? What do you got? What do you got, Quinn? What do you got in the way of uh emu gelato today? Like Vancouver Island Saffron emu gelato.
What do we have? Uh the don't uh in a focaccia cone. In a focaccia cone. It's a it's it's a it's a Vancouver Island saffron emu egg gelato in a focaccia cone. That's the Quinn.
Yeah, someone's uh uh the Discord's already uh bugging me uh already yesterday. They posted some photo from uh Reddit, I think it was a giant emu uh ramen egg. And they're like, Oh, I found Quinn. Nice. All right, so what what do you make in the real life though?
Okay, in the real life, uh I was inspired by uh the walks of life. You know, we've had them on the show before. Uh in one of their videos, they modify one of their stir-fried meats, like marinated, deep fried, fully velveted stir fry recipes, into a sort of ground meat nugget recipe. So I applied that sort of similar technique to a uh a meatball mixture. So I made like a meatball mixture, but then instead of forming, you know, spheres, we made these sort of irregular uh flour coated nuggets and then sort of almost you know, stir-fried or shallow fried them and then glazed them with the tomato sauce.
Turned up pretty good. When you say irregular, do you mean that you just didn't care what shape they are craggy, they have less surface area. I see, I see. And yet the sizes variable. I see.
Uh, have you ever heard of the television show The Facts of Life? Everybody have not watched it. Now I so it had a like this that era, 70s and early 80s was a very good time for theme songs. And the facts of life had a good theme song, and now I'm singing the facts of life, but the walks of life. Yeah, you know what I mean?
So you gotta just I'm not gonna sing it for you, but just you know, down you know, go on YouTube, watch the facts of life theme song, and then just replace it with walks of life, you know. And uh then you can know what goes through my head on a regular basis. You know what I'm saying? So how'd they come out, your nuggets? Yeah.
Your nug your vel your velveted irregular nuggets. Well, no, again, like the it's actually really funny. I made the sauce to go with it and a pressure cooker, and you know, I knew it would come out pretty loose, like watery. Yeah. And that was fine.
I was gonna reduce it anyways. You should always start pressure cook things with less moisture, you know what I'm saying? You you want the minimum like just so it's not gonna burn. You know what I'm saying? Well, like I you know, the I just added tomato.
That was the only source of uh moisture, and then like a little bit of water to to rinse the cans. Well, I like that. You're like, and a little bit of water. Yeah, I knew you're like the only moisture I added was water. Just like it was gonna be a pretty loose sauce, and then you know, I was gonna reduce it anyways.
And this wasn't my intention, but like the strained sauce reduced over the nuggets, really did have like a sweet, glazed, like takeout restaurant. Right. It was pretty pretty funny how it turned out. Because I was I was just going for the same sort of texturing form factor from their recipe. But it turned out closer to take her than I thought.
You now put the Wonder Twins into my head, but I'm not going to discuss it. Shape of form of. Oh, prime rib? Yeah. You know what I'm gonna ask?
What? Okay. Like on a scale of like, wow, that's cooked. It's a cooked. How was the prime rib?
Or was it rare in the middle? It was rare in the middle, but we all sat down and my mom took one bite, and then she said, This is a very old cow, and then she took all the prime ribs off of our plates and threw it away. Come on, come on. For real? Swear to God.
Oh my God. Oh my god. Hold on. So first of all, did you get a bite of it beforehand? Yeah.
Yeah. And did was it especially chewy as though the meat had a an extra amount of collagen in it? Or was this just like an insanity? Yeah. Yeah.
It was it was old. It was old. But for her to say that. Yeah. This is an old cow.
And then pick it up and throw it away. It's like that scene in the brother War Dow where they're eating the horse and the guy's like, Yeah, this horse turned about a week ago. Wait, wait. Is the point that the cow was literally old, like in years, like long in the tooth or or long in the hoof, or whatever they call these things, or did did she mean that the meat had been sitting in the butcher's shop too long in the wrong conditions? Which one of those two?
Or both. Okay, fair assessment. Okay, so since I've eaten like like really, really old cow, like, and I have to say, it was interesting. I've posted it on Instagram. You can go back and look, and John and I have talked about it a number of times.
And you know, whatever's n uh you know, Jeffrey Steingarden you started was like early on this like super old meat from Spain bull crud, and then McGee's talked about some many people. The fat is completely different, so it's like weird and it's like super yellow. Was the fat super yellow on this one? Uh I don't I don't remember looking at it, like thinking that, but maybe, yeah. So the flavor is usually like uh can be good.
Was the flavor not good? It's just a text or is it texture? None of it none of it was good. I didn't have enough of it because she took it. So you know the solution to meat so well, first of all, obviously, like Americans, myself incl myself included, right?
Like when we have a prime rib, we're looking for a texture of a rib steak. So when it's chewy, we're like, nope. You know what I mean? Or if it's got like like if the cartilage is too much, like you know that how they're like like in between the cap and that there's that like cartilage layer. If that's too much, we're like, nope, or if the silver skin's too strong, especially if you don't, you know, cut it up open to meat glue it, but uh my we're just not used to eating it chewy, so sometimes it's hard to get past, but you didn't even have enough to judge whether the flavor was good.
You cause you can always slice it thin, you know what I'm saying? It's he just said a lot of stuff where you imagine this this old cow and so it's like done, you know. Yeah, so she ruined it for everyone with the statement. I see. I see.
See, for uh it, you know, with me, it would have turned off half the people in my house, but I would have been like, Oh cow, all right. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, I would have been fine with it. But have I told the the Miley with the pie story here ever?
I did a like a key lime pie variant with mint in it. Okay. And I made it, it was like a mint lime pie, like you know, almost like a mojito style, like a pie, key lime. And I bring it out, and Miley, you know, she's been on the show, hates mint. Hates mint.
Detests mint. Doesn't like any form of mint. Doesn't like mint. Mints, mint, anything mint. So I bring it out, and she's like, she literally said this, and she doesn't even remember saying it because it just came right out of her.
Nobody wants your toothpaste pie. And then no one ate a piece of it. That was it. I had to throw it away. Because no one wanted a piece.
Once she called a toothpaste pie, nobody wanted it anymore. You know what I mean? Yeah. Whereas I was like, toothpaste pie, sign me up. Is it real gritty?
That's the thing about toothpaste. Mint plus grit. Anyways. Um by the way, uh, for any of you uh get your trigger fingers ready and itchy to call in your questions to George Motes about hamburgers because they're gonna be here momentarily uh to uh 917-4101507. That's 9174101507.
Of course, you can only call if you're listening live, which means that you're a Patreon member. John, why don't you tell them why they might want to do such a thing? You can go check it out at patreon.com slash cooking issues where you can find a couple different membership levels. Every membership level gets you access to our Discord where you get to speak with other like-minded fans, um, ask questions. You get uh when we don't have guests, they prioritizes answering your questions.
You get access to discounts uh with booklet people, like Kitchen Arts and Letters, and so it's just a bunch of great things. So check it out. Patreon.com slash cooking. Although although Discord people, people who are so what happens is you join the Patreon, you go on the Discord and you ask questions, Quinn scoops them up and puts them in. I do highly recommend that you folks send us like questions for the um for the the people who are gonna come on because this is like a good opportunity to talk to you know these people, ask them questions, and so take advantage of it, right?
Otherwise you all you get to hear is the crazy crap I want to ask them. You know what I'm saying? Uh so in the oh by the way, uh Kitchen Arts and Letters does not carry hamburger America, I guess because it's not a cookbook, right? So we're trying to get something together for our Patreon people with uh McNally Jackson. We'll let you know if we get it to go through or not.
Um and last but certainly not least, before Joe shows up, what's uh what's the weekend? Wait, you're recovering from pneumonia, but you ate nothing, Jack? You started, but then I felt like maybe you come up with something. Uh no, I cooked um for Passover, actually, for my girlfriend is a little surprised. I did uh the Zahav matzo ball soup from their cookbook, which was very, very good.
Had uh, you know, made made the stock standard stock, and then um use black garlic when you heat up the broth. Oh, that's non-standard. Matzo balls from scratch. Yeah, no, it's non-standard. The black garlic was good, and then the matzo balls were delicious.
Does it does it change the color of the soup? Not really. No, it's not too much black garlic, just like, you know, one little head of it. Um I guess this this is just a little darker, maybe. And what size mozzar balls are they?
Like what like all like you know, it like you they can be so many sizes. What size are we talking? In terms of a ball that we all understand? They start golf ball and then maybe end up closer to like hmm between a golf ball and a baseball, not quite a baseball, that's huge. Rat racket.
Definitely bigger than the golf ball. Racket ball. There you go. Yeah. All right.
How much dill? Yeah. Any dill? Yeah, yeah. Top it off with dill there at the end.
Huh. All right. And uh, and what do you use to lighten if anything, your uh mozzaballs? What's the what's the key there? Uh baking powder.
All right. So Joe here has some serious opinions. So what what are your thoughts on matzable? No, I'm sure, you know. I know, I would just use matzo meal.
Yeah. But you don't add anything else to like make it puff? No, the mozzamial is enough for me. Yeah. Yep.
I guess you really shouldn't leaven it, huh? Uh what did you guys at your house, did you do both Easter and Passover or no? No, we just did Passover. We did an egg hunt. Yeah?
Yeah. Growing up, we'd never celebrated Easter. My mother went to church. But um during Passover we would um have a Seder at the house. Yeah, all right, cool.
Yeah. This year I'm I made a haroset, which is the the mortar, whatever it's you know, represents the mortar, an Iranian pest um haros it with apricots, dates, hazelnuts, almonds, bananas, which is the secret. Uh uh orange zest, um pomegranate juice, grape juice, kosher wine, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon. Delicious. Man.
Delicious. And is this something you've made before, or is this? I've made it one time before I perfected it this time. Huh? Oh, a pear and an apple.
You're like, oh, plus a pear and an apple. Yeah. All right. A lot of ingredients, but it turns it yields a delicious little tasty thing. Oh, you got to put it up on our Patreon.
Oh, I can pass it on, sure. Yeah, pass it on to Quinn. We'll put it up on our Patreon. Uh, speaking of which, there's going to be a new sifter, which I'm not going to talk about. That uh there's going to be a video posted.
And I'm going to, if if anyone out there owns a uh on our Patreon, owns a mill and or um has uh access to a 3D FDM 3D printer, I can give you the files. Uh all right. So while we are waiting for uh George, did I miss anyone? Did I miss anything? Nope, we're good.
All right, cool. So I'm still uh I got a question for Contra Cookbook, but uh I haven't seen uh those fools today, so I'll wait to answer that. And I haven't heard back for O and K for a whiley yet, but let's look at some other questions from our users while we're waiting. From TYV Mush, I've sifted some hazelnut flour through a coarse mesh uh through a coarse through a coarse mesh strainer. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time saying that.
Uh, to get it finer, but I'm left with about an equal amount of cornmeal size nut flour, slightly larger. Is there an efficient way to get the core stuff finer? Yeah, yeah, put it back, put it back into the uh into the blender, my man. You know what I mean? Put it back in the blender, people.
Um is there an efficient way to get the stuff finer? It's too coarse to use for tart dough update. I pulled it with uh the cocoa powder from the recipe much better. Still curious if anyone has other ideas. Yeah, so that's a good idea because cocoa flour really cocoa uh sorry, cocoa powder can't really get much finer.
It's extremely fine, so you're not gonna hurt anything. Really, anything that's gonna stop the nuts from pasting when you re-blend it and bulk it up enough to get it to where you can um act actively blend or pulse it is gonna be fine. So you can do it with sugar, you can do it with uh there's not gonna be probably enough salt in it, but you can do it with salt, you could do it, you could do it really with anything. Um by the way, I know I said this before, uh, but uh the power move that uh if you're going to add things that are too coarse, for instance, salt, to a recipe later. Let's say you do uh, let's say you do an like uh an autolized step on your bread and you add the salt to a fully compounded dough after you've let it rest for like half hour, like like the Raza folks do.
Uh, it's really good idea to uh pulse the hell out of your salt in a small blender to make it into a powder because then it's just gonna go in much faster. So that's one thing I'll say on uh powdering, uh powdering things. Um, John, did uh did Quinn send you the uh the picture yet or no? I don't think yeah, well, we're gonna answer the question now, so now would be a good time to send it to him. Uh we got uh Danny G has uh gone back and forth with us on the on off, on off cooking.
And I'm gonna have I want uh John in on this because uh John also is a fan of the off on off on cooking. And Danny was having a problem getting uh getting like what we said that we get out of it, which is kind of like a nice uh, you know, good crust transition between crust and interior and a non-overcooked interior without having to worry a lot. That's the advantage. Now, I'll also say this. Uh, I, of course, because I've been doing this for infinity years, know how to uh take a piece of meat and put a hard crust on the two sides of it and have the inside be all one color.
It turns out like low temperature cooking, you can do this, you can then chill the meat down, hard sear the outside of it, and basically have crust, wall to wall, one doneess crust. Most people actually don't like to eat that kind of meat. They don't really like it. Yep. You know what I mean?
What people actually like to do is cut through most people, not everyone, cut through a piece of meat, have like a like a difference in texture between the top surface, which is a crust, but then below the top surface to the center, which they want they want the average to be a certain thing, but they they really want that textual difference. Wouldn't you say so, John? Yeah, agreed. Yeah. And so especially on something like a brown or something about earlier.
Yeah, yeah. So uh so Danny G was having a difficult time achieving this with you know, my preferred method is very hot heat, put it on, put pull it off, and so like uh and and then you just keep doing that until the internal temperature gets where you want it to be. And you can also then let it rest for a while and rehit it at the end so you can do a large quantity of of meat this way. And kind of uh what I like about it is you don't need to think about the temperature of the of the grill or the surface because the answer is it's hot. It's hot.
You know what I mean? And then it's just about how long you take it off and and and put it on. What are you gonna say, Quinn? I want to clarify something, because I I sent John the image and he's confused. Uh Danny G and in his question clarifies that he didn't have a Yeah, I know it's AI.
It's AI. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Right. I'll I'll get to it. Don't worry. I know that. I read the question.
But my point is is uh it's the funniest AI it's the funniest AI image I've ever seen in my life. So with Danny G's permission, I would like to put what AI thinks Danny G's meat looked like. I hear we have uh George coming in, so uh so d Danny G, if I have time at the end of this, I'll I'll I have an answer for you. I think I've solved your problem, but we might have to get to it next time. Cause I think we just got George getting ready to come in the studio.
Give us a second, we'll be right back. And we are back with George Moats, the proprietor, chef, and burger historian of Hamburger America, and the uh recent publisher of the fourth, fourth, fourth, fourth edition of Hamburger America. Revised, expanded, and I'll say contracted, because you have removed. Oh, welcome. Oh, thank you.
Hi, good to see you, Dave. Yeah. So uh, you know, look, we had uh uh what I thought was a fruitful uh conversation about uh hamburgers uh right before you opened the restaurant Hamburger America, and you know, you re-release this book, which is substantially larger, right? Oh, yeah. It's I mean it's it's almost 500 pages.
That's a lot it's 159,000 words on dedicated, every word dedicated to the hamburger. Well, you do mention other things. Yeah. I have to. Yeah.
In fact, there is uh literally, there's literally, I swear to God, in this book, if you can find it, there's a two-page spread of like, by the way, here's some stuff you should order that's not a burger at these places. That's right. Yeah. Uh and the other thing is is that he'll go to all these restaurants and he's like, listen, I know, I know this restaurant's known for X, Y, and Z, but I'm here for the burgers. It's burgers, burgers.
You know what I mean? So it's important. I mean I think I think it's important, obviously, you get on the road, it's not all about burgers, it's about everything else. And it's my little way of making sure that people f uh don't forget the the side dishes. You know, sometimes I mean m most cases like fries are always they always suck in restaurants.
They usually suck. They usually suck at burger places. Yeah, everything's they usually suck. They suck. You know who doesn't like fries very much?
I said this a million times. There you go. But uh I texted her a picture of the book last night. The uh what's what's that place I texted you, Stas in LA? The apple slice?
What's it called? Apple pan. Apple pan. Apple slice. Apple pan.
And I was like, legit. And Stas was like, yeah, legit. You actually like that place, right, Stas? Maybe she dropped. She she she lives in this place where the internet just freaking dies.
The mountains? Yeah, yeah. Basically. The mountains of love. Subway.
She lives in the subway? Yeah, well that's where I'm in the subway. That's where basically like, you know, like uh we're all trogodites here. You know what I mean? Uh but I feel that's a word that doesn't get used enough, trogodite.
It doesn't, yeah. Yeah. Let's bring it back, Dave. Yeah, exactly. All right.
So uh listen, we're gonna skip like your uh history as a movie guy and like how you got into this, your you know, documentary, which anyone who's worth anything has seen. You know, have you ever you haven't revised that though, right? That's just a document. No, someone I mean yesterday asked me if I would think I was considered doing it. I consider it, sure, why not?
But it's been 25 years. Yeah, but you know what someone needs to do? Write a check. So write a check. Yeah, money talks, right?
Right. Well, I mean, like I mean, like you're a f you're, you know, a film film person, right? That's the thing. Oh, yeah, who's gonna write the check? Right.
But the issue is not so much the money, it's really the what happens. I mean, I used to walk into these places and they they look at me and they say, You're crazy. It's just a hamburger. Why do you make such a big deal out of this? Like, because that's what I do.
I'm excited about American culture and these things and hamburgers. And they would think I was nuts. And so I made a film, and now if I go back to these places, they all know who I am. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. It's I don't know how I'd walk into any place that for this film and treat it like it was like they'd never heard of me before.
You have to do like old school Rikel and like get some sort of like, you know, you'd have to dewolverine yourself. Right. That's right and like, and uh but you if you guys are on the Patreon, you can see what's going on. And then like, yeah, put on like a giant wig, you know what I mean? And like go in.
Maybe looking like uh I feel like if you walked in with a full-on 70s bozo outfit, no one would look at you, they'd be too frightened. Right. They'd be just give him what he wants and he'll move on. Give Bozo his burger. You know what I mean?
He's got a pen and paper. What is he doing? Yeah. And then you take it off. Surprise, it's me.
You know what I mean? Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Uh, you know, because it is true though, like uh it's a very different experience going to someplace when they know you versus when they don't know you. Absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, if I don't want special treatment when I walk into these places ever. I want the treatment that everyone else gets. Because I mean, if I'm trying to write a guide book, it doesn't do anyone any any it's a complete disservice if if I'm given like, oh, the double patty when it's only ever a single, or the special button we have in the back for you know for VIPs. I don't want that.
All right. So speaking of this, as like so if you're thinking of it like a guidebook, right? So for me, uh like I like I'm never gonna go first of all, I'm I'm never gonna I mean like I I wish I could go. My brother-in-law Travis, who shot my book, right? Uh he has had a grilled cheese sandwich in 50 states, uh sorry, 49 states.
He's missed, well, maybe 48. He's missed one or two. He can't remember whether he's had one in uh I think it's North Dakota. I don't know whether he like he's one of the Dakotas he's missed in Hawaii, because he's never been to Hawaii. That's an achievement.
Yeah, so it's grilled cheese in every state. And he's like, I was like, how were they? He's like, fine, I'm a vegetarian, and so basically I know that I can get a grilled cheese, and so I just made sure that wherever I go, I get a grilled cheese so that I could say I had a grilled cheese, but he never like recorded or anything. So and um, and unlike, you know, if you if you actually look up, because I did once I looked up best grilled cheeses, and it's just some sort of AI slop, like you know, scraped off of like you know, local Yelp pages, and it's all of these things that are in all the same, not your book. No, this this is the real deal.
Yeah. Uh but as a guidebook, there are some bones that I have to pick because you took some of the stuff that was because you're also a hamburger historian, a preservationist. Yes, so for instance, the Goober burger. Yes. Right?
Was in the original thing. Yes. Place closed. Yeah. And now it's not represented anymore.
There's not like a land that you know that time forgot kind of a situation where it's like gone but not forgotten or something. There's no there's no place for, you know, like like recently lost historically interesting burgers. Actually, Dave, there is. Where is it? You should mention it.
My other book. But is it still available or not? Well, it's the it's called the Great American Burger Book. It's the cookbook. Oh, okay.
The cookbook is the place where all those burgers land. If you need to recreate a burger from hist from history, it's in that book. See, smart it's smarter than I thought. Like I gotta buy two books. That one's hardcover, too.
Yeah, all right. All right. When you cook, do you cook with a book or do you like read the book and then go cook? Oh, it depends on what we're talking about. I mean, if I'm if I'm trying to recreate something from uh from you know from my books, I look at the book.
Obviously, you know, a lot of times I don't I I cook just you know by t touch and feel and smell and taste, obviously. Yeah, yeah. So uh uh last time you were on, you were about to open but had not opened the restaurant yet. Uh and I know that prior to that you did like, you know, eight billion pop-ups for like a a jillion people with uh, you know, your at the time you were still and you still I guess l love the Oklahoma onion burger situation. Which by the way, the onions not only cheaper as you write in the book, because you go through by the way, if you do not like onions, maybe like this book is so replete with onions, I can almost smell onions reading the book.
It's me. That's what you're doing. It's like super onions, like like one of the places, I forget which one, literally is like we won't cook it without onions. Suck it. That's right.
That's right. No onions, no food. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. It's like because it's gonna taste like onions anyway, because this griddle is nothing but onions.
So you know what I mean? But how much of it is that you think it was cheaper? It's also, if you're gonna smash it, a fantastic nonstick device. Because you know, burgers, unless your spatula is just the right heat, when you smack it down and squish it, you know, meat stick. I mean, that's why when I'm doing it at home, since I'm a chump, I use parchment.
So that I I'm a guaranteed peel. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's a good way, a good scientific way to pull it off. But you know, uh it's amazing how many people I see on the internet who will put the onions on the wrong side. And they say, I can't the on the the beef keeps sticking to the spatula when I smash because you don't have that, you know, that that barrier of onion between the beef and the and the and the spatula.
Right. You have parchment paper, which works obviously also, but there should be onions there. Well, and this is a good reason. I know you love this. You sit as close to the if if you can sit close to the machinery, you sit close to the machinery so you can see what's going on.
Yeah, yeah. At the restaurant, you mean. Yeah. So you can see what people do because it's all about what's in their hand. Yeah, there's no secrets.
Yeah, you walk into the restaurant, you can sit real literally can sit, you can almost you shouldn't, but you could almost touch the griddle if you want to. Well, you have a sneeze guard. We have a sneeze guard, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was well, that was Biden.
DOH had made us put that up. Otherwise, hey, if it wasn't for DOH, I would I would you could practically sit you know next to the griddle if you wanted to and hang out and talk to us. There are no secrets. There, it's all right there. You can see everything happening.
If you have a if you have any interest in in how these burgers are made, and you can follow what we're doing, you can go home and do the same thing. And he has like George has a rear, a rear section and a front section, and you're usually manning the front flat top. Right. They call the front griddle the show griddle. Uh sometimes called the vacation because everything gets made there, but it's all made, you know, 15 stools at a time.
Right, right. We have 15 stools to feed, and then once they're fed, you're kind of twiddling your thumbs. And the back, that's the machine. The back is the those are two griddles that are the same size as mine on the front, but there are two of them, and they're cranking out all the orders to go and to sit in the back. Right.
Or to sit outside. And which is a lot more than we're doing at the at the counter. And so uh I forget you're you're not a chrome griddle guy, you're a black griddle guy, right? Yes. Uh it has to be steel.
Yeah. I just again everything we do in the restaurant is based on history. Based on what already works at other restaurants, you know, I've I've I've watched what goes on, I've looked at the methods, the ingredients, and the equipment, and I've everything we do is based on just based on that. We're not trying to recreate anything. We're just trying to make sure that we're getting it accurate, making sure it's historically accurate and it works.
Right. So you're also a huge fan, and you look, I guess the problem is most people at home, so the majority of people who are are listening to this are probably cooking at home. And most of them don't have uh they're not cooking on a large flat top. And so you're a huge fan. Most they can use a lid on the pan, obviously, if they're doing a pan, but you're a huge fan of like the small, small stainless cloche.
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm a fan at home of the cast iron uh cast iron skillet. But if you can get the largest griddle, largest skillet you can find to put on your on your uh your cooktop, you're in you're you're halfway there. The rest is just trying to figure out the temperature, the heat, obviously, uh and then the ingredients and the the the type of grinder you're using, all those kinds of things are very important. But again, just come watch us. Right.
So well, as a before I get into the the book proper and the you know, whatever like uh questions and bones and whatnot, uh you're also like a like I said, you consider yourself a uh a a a hamburger historian, but a living historian. So you will actually at Hamburger America, I don't know if everyone knows this, but uh once a month, usually you will do a uh an historically important burger, you will contact said people, and usually they will bring an ingredient or their human flesh sacks to your restaurant. That's right. And you will they will you will make it, you will ship in whatever ingredients you need to do that, and then uh they they will bless it and be like, yes, this is how it should taste. And I've seen them do this many times.
And then you serve it out for a short period of time. So what have you learned from doing that? Well we learned that uh it's important to get the details uh correct like to actually we we get into the granular detail granular details of these burgers we make sure that they are completely accurate uh recreations of these burgers uh right to the point where I don't know if we talked about this uh before but the uh we we recreated the uh long gone now as of 17 years almost 18 years now the Yankee Doodle the doodle burger and that burger was served with a tiny little little paper ramekin of red relish and what we would do is you would actually we'd serve it with the burger obviously because that's what that's what they did at the Yankee Doodle. And people would look at it and go, what's this for? Uh what's what's this red stuff?
It's like aha you didn't go to Yale or you weren't from New Haven. And so but you'd watch people walk in, take that cup, turn it upside down and pinch it and it would land on the burger and you'd say aha this person's obviously knows they've been there and then they start crying because they they realize that they're the sense memory comes back fast. Yeah. I used to get the pigs in a blanket there which were hot dogs wrapped in bacon fried on a split buttered hot dog bun. We actually made that for a regular really months ago.
And he's he kept asking me over and over and over again I said come on he's there every day. He's there literally every single day at 3 30 and I said can you make me one and I said I said come back tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow and I actually pulled it off. Yeah. And he said that's really good you should do more of those.
Yeah and we were like no I did one. I did two the first one we failed at the second one was his. Yeah so the uh Yankee Doodle had a great sign. Had a great sign. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Uh so we try to get into the details. Details are very important for us because we want to make sure that we're doing it correctly.
And honestly, uh we have uh it's been a lot harder than I thought this program because we have had we've had to not include burgers because we couldn't get the ingredients. They didn't want to give us recipes, the rest the recipes from the actual restaurant. So it was very sometimes it doesn't happen. But the ones that we have on the menu, we have worked very, very hard to make sure they're a deadly accurate. Well, the crazy one was you put the burger from was it Camilla Camilla Grill?
Yeah but it wasn't actually the burger in the book. You did a Poe Boy hamburger and then you shipped up like like flash frozen shipped up the poeboy bread and you had to thaw it like 13 seconds before you serve it because it goes stale. Exactly. So I'm glad you you caught that because it's very important that you know we actually have we have a freezer on the floor. We have a freezer in the obviously downstairs, we have another freezer upstairs, and the crew is instructed to not pull that bread out until at least five minutes before we're ready to make that burger.
And we we can judge how many burgers we're gonna make, how many po boys we're gonna make, and they could because it defrosts so fast. It defrosts in five minutes. We can also slice it and put it on the flat top, which they're supposed to do. It's very accurate to give it a light toast on the on the griddle. And uh it you but you have to do that, otherwise the minute it'll turn into a baseball bat in ten minutes.
It'll be f it'll be stale. Yeah, the messiest burger I ever saw, you guys, because I haven't been to all of them, unfortunately. Like I missed some of the ones I really I've missed slug burger, which was recently. No, we actually had to push that one. That was you did miss it.
You're good. All right. That's coming up. We'll talk, we'll talk about it. But the messiest one was the one from uh oh my god, why did the name go out of my head?
It's right in my neighborhood where I grew up, but Purdies. Purdies? Yeah, you know, like by Crossroads. Yeah, oh my God. That's a great the Celsius burger.
Oh my god. That was a sneeze guard's words nightmare. That sneeze guard was like a reverse sneeze guard. You were getting guarded from the sneeze off of the flat top. That's right, exactly.
It was a sputtering, a sputtering uh thick paddy, too. We don't do thick patties ever. And that was like that we we wanted to make that burger happen. It's a thick patty, so we made it. Well, it's interesting.
You're not a thick patty man yourself. However, I've noticed that in the book, you quote unquote, uh actually, I don't know whether you said this, but the internet says about you that you pick no favorites, but clearly you have favorites. And uh the book. Yeah, yeah. Well, uh, but the the point is is that you seem to gravitate either towards a loose style or just but nothing in between or smashed, but nothing kind of you're not an in-betweener.
Well, I'm just I'm a if the burger's great, um, it's I'm there. You know, uh, it doesn't really matter how it's made to me. I mean, there's so many different methods, you know. That how burgers are made, they're steamed, they're they're fried, they're deep fried, they're they're smashed flat, they're they're paddied, ham padded, they're machine paddied. It doesn't really matter to me.
Uh I do tend to uh I like the ones that just have great history. Yeah. So George, I like said this already, uh, likes onion. Every single patty frozen. I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding. Frozen. No frozen. Yeah, hate free. Scientifically does terrible things to the beef, you know.
Oh, no, no. Hates freezing. Like it's like you know, it's like you ask all you know, that's the one thing that you you it's 220 restaurants, basically 220 times. It's like, are they frozen? No, yeah, I you have to ask that question.
Yeah. Everyone should ask that question. Do you freeze your patties? I can always tell now when I ask that question to a new restaurant or a restaurant, you know, that I'm I'm discovering for the first time. The way they answer the question is always telling the tell, you know.
Um let me find out. And then you know that something might be wrong. So uh I mean, this, with the exception of the slug burger, uh, these are beef burgers in here. Is there any alternative burger product, burger meat that you actually enjoy having? I mean, outside of to make a burger?
Yeah. No. To me, uh I'm I'm an absolute purist, I'm total purist. And the burger should be made only with with uh with beef from a cow, uh yeah, meat from a cow. Yeah.
Have you tried yak? I have not tried yak. No, shouldn't I? I don't mean, like I've only had yak steak, and it's real good. Can you put cow fat?
Can you put cow fat in it? I'm sure you could. You know, the flavor comes from anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting.
I did a bunch of research and we always say fat equals flavor, right? But it turns out that most of the fat that brings the flavor of the meat isn't necessarily the intramuscular fat. It's the actual fat in the in the uh membranes around the cells. Right. Yeah.
So it's like you can't get the fl so we used to do stuff where we would cheat and we would take beef and layer it with lamb fat. And you get some lamb flavor that way. Yeah. But it's still not lamb. Tasting.
Because you don't have the the the actual the actual uh fat that's in the cell membranes is still, you know, nothing. Yeah, right. So David's actually pointing it as at himself while he's talking about cell membranes. Yeah, that's right. Well you have it.
So what's the butcher? So there's one store. What's the what's the place in here that's in an actual butcher shop where you order meat and hamburgers at the same counter? There's actually a bunch. Uh there are a bunch that used to be.
Oh, the there's that place a place in uh Des Moines, Iowa. Yeah. It's called B B B Grocery. There you go. They actually still it's what it's one of those rare spots where they actually still do uh they still they're still they're still butchering beef and making burgers at the counter.
Right, at the same counter. There's so many places in America that were butcher shops that transitioned into uh hamburger shops because they just they realized the hamburger business was bigger than the butcher business. Actually, there are many of them that have done that. And they've still have their old butcher counters now that are using it to serve burgers. But that's one of those rare places that is still in transition.
But plus uh give me a ribeye to go. Yeah, I get two cheeseburgers and a uh ribeye. Yeah, yeah. But it's weird, like is it actually fun? Because like uh sometimes being with the like a boatload of the raw product can make the cooked product off-putting, but not in this situation.
No, I it's I don't I think it's uh Des Moines. I think Des Moines is they're they're they're they're they're hip to it. They're wise to the, you know, that's they know where their beef's coming from. Yeah. You know where the burgers are coming from.
Like I've said it, I've said this before, so sorry cooking issues people, but like I still remember when I was a kid, my my stepfather's father was a butcher and his father and his father and his father and his father all the way back to Italy and then who knows how far back butchers, right? Yeah. And so when I was a kid, after he, you know, my you know, after Papa had retired, we took him to a slaughterhouse, you know, good old days. So we went to a slaughterhouse, and then that he was like, Oh yeah, and he bought a bunch of tripe, but like even having the tripe in such close proximity to being at the slaughterhouse, I was like, you know what? I'm good.
You know what I mean? So it's like weird. Yeah. Yeah. It's true.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I I prefer to see what's going on. I prefer to see the meat, you know, that I'm about to eat. You know, the nice thing about the restaurant also is that you're watching, you know, ground beef, raw beef being smashed right in front of you.
It's not we're not, it's not in a kitchen in the back. We're an open kitchen, and you can see everything happen. And some people don't like that. Most people do. So that but that guy in Des Moines, he drew the cuts on a piece of paper.
I'm like, just use your body. It's so much easier to point on your body to where a cut of meat comes from. It's so true. You know what I mean? Like there.
You know what I mean? It's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh so is there any one of the burgers that you've done at Hamburger America where you're like, you know what? Because I know here's the thing that people I guess don't realize. Maybe they do. You didn't just start the restaurant. You did all of this research, had done like I say, a million pop-ups, decided what your way to do it was, and then opened.
So it's not like I mean, it's probably rare that you see a new piece of information on how to cook a burger that's gonna change the way you cook your burger. Very rare, yeah. Has it happened? I've seen uh well, a lot of times what'll happen is we'll get the I'll have an idea of how the burger should be cooked. And there's some detail I'm missing, and then we'll get that person in the restaurant from their restaurant, and we'll we have this big press conference.
You've been to you've been to a few of them before. And they'll they'll say, Oh, don't do it this way, do it that way. I never thought of that. And it's the tiniest little things, like how things are made. We actually learned the recipe from uh place in Sally's, a place in uh in Milwaukee called Sale's, and he teaches I can't give it to you, but he gave me the recipe for their stewed onions.
I've been guessing it for years. And he said, No, George, just this, this is the twice, is this the twice-cooked one? Is this the one where they they pre-cook it, let it rest, and then cook it again on the griddle? No, this this is Sally's is the butter burger. Oh, butter burger.
And they they they famously have stewed onions. And I I've I surmised there was some kind of like, you know, maybe white wine in there or something. I went too far. And it's actually in my cookbook, I talk about the recipe for the stewed onions, and he was laughing at me saying, No, it's not you're so far off. In the cookbook, I said, Well, I was just I didn't want it, I don't want your recipes.
And he gave me the recipe, which I won't give you. But so maybe I ask you a question. Yeah, so you're you're you're not gonna get the recipe. Like, we're not gonna pry an eye because like you know, George isn't gonna be doing that to someone, but how close is your totally off recipe taste-wise? Because there's a million ways to get to the same place.
It's true. So it was pretty close, but it was it was it wasn't there. It was I knew something was wrong. And when I we finally made it the right way for the restaurant, he told me he gave me the recipe, so don't tell anybody, I won't tell anybody. It was it was obviously exactly that, which I was so happy about.
So when you made it the way he said it was spot. Oh, spot on. Yeah. Spot on. All right, so here we go.
Here's some bones to pick uh before we get going in the in the time where we're on abbreviated menu, uh abbreviated time uh here today. But uh so why do you hate Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, West Virginia, and Wyoming? Well, there's no hate. You tell me what why why are there no classic burgers in these states? And if Oh, you're saying there's no classic burger in Alabama anywhere?
There are. Um, unfortunately, some of the best ones closed. Um, and a few of them I've reached out too. So a lot of times what happens when I'm making this book and doing research is that I'll reach out to someone, they'll say, No, go away. I'm like, oh, okay, but we're trying to wait.
We don't care. They just don't care. Some people just don't care. They don't they don't need to be in a book. They make their burgers, they they go home, they wake up in the morning and do it again.
Well, if Louis, if Louise Lunch is going to talk to you, anyone will talk to you. Well, by the way, they barely talk to me. I've been there before. They don't they don't really talk, you know. They they they I mean at this point, it's been it's taken taken decades to try to get under their good side.
All they all they say to me is we're out, you should have come earlier. That's right. It's like we're closing, hurry up. I'm like, what the hell, dude? Buy more meat, jerk.
They're what they're one, it's in a wonderful place and they're a very important part of history, but at the same time, they don't really care that they're in the book or not. They do, I think a little bit, but not so much. So it's that's that's one of the challenges. People, you know, the there are many places in Alaska. Let's just start there for starters, right?
Easily. Um, Wyoming, a bunch of the old places have closed. Uh we just lost one. I think 120 year old restaurant in Wyoming closed. I missed it.
I didn't get a chance to go there. Uh Alabama, there are places. I've just I've I have had a really hard time trying to find them. There are newer places. I mean, to be in the book, you have to have a burger on the menu for over 20 years.
Oh, that's the rule? That's the rule. That's the starting rule. It has to be a great burger, and it's got to be made from beef. Um, but that's it.
I mean, that's that's they're it's kind of hard to find those places. The reason we have that cutoff is because if you uh if you own a restaurant for 20 years, 18 to 20 years, you're probably thinking about selling it, you're handing off to the next generation, and those are the burger places I want to talk about. Yeah. So for those of you uh in Wyoming, West Virginia, Hawaii, Arizona, Alabama, Alaska, please send George your 20 year plus uh record. Please do.
Please do. Now, what time well what percentage and now you you in the back actually you credit uh you credit like saying your burger army who like feeds you information by EB EBTs, my expert burger tasters. Yeah. Uh so how often when someone recommends something to you, are you like been there, hated it? You don't put anything in here you don't like.
Yeah, no, no, it's all everything I like in there. Which I appreciate. Yeah, yeah. So if I ask you a question about one and it's not in here, well, you tell me what you think. So my dad's favorite burger, I've only been there once with Harold McGee, like maybe 18 years, 15, 18 years ago.
Okay. Palo Alto Kirk Steak Burger. Ooh. I've never heard of it. There you go.
Yeah. So it's in Palo Alto. My dad in the early 70s, so we moved out of Palo Alto in like 74, 73, 74. Okay. He used to go there and get them, take them home and eat Kirk steak burgers with bottles of Rieschborg.
DRC Rieschborg. Because it wasn't expensive back in the day. It wasn't that expensive in the early 70s. Yeah. And so I went back there with Harold McGee and it was still pretty good.
And it's still Kirk's. It's still just Kirk's steak burgers. Yeah, yeah. Oh, good. I've never heard of that.
No. One for the l I take all this stuff very seriously. And if somebody does send me a suggestion, I do it goes into a massive file I have. And my my version of how serious they might have may have been about the suggestion. Yeah.
Well, and this place was there before, you know, Palo Alto was Silicon Valley, right? So like to give you an example, I think my parents sold the house when they moved out here to New York for something like $35,000. Wow. You know what I mean? I'm sorry, man.
That is bizarre. Sorry, dude. I would have been there. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean it's a quick stop. It's easy. Yeah, yeah. It might have moved because it's in a strip mall. I don't think they had script mall.
I don't know. I was too young to remember. I'll find out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you I'm sure you will.
Kirks. Uh all right. Another one I thought like I could give you something, but I I can't. In Venice, Florida, my grandparents, you you don't you know what Gunter Gable Williams was? No.
Who is that? He was the famous 70s and 80s Ringwing Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus Animal Trainer. Gun Gunter. Yeah, okay. Gunter Gable Williams.
Yeah. He has a famous steak sauce. I know you like saw weird sauces that people make. And he had one, but this the only place it makes it is the Crow's Nest in Venice, which is a steakhouse. But morons, they don't put it on any of their burgers.
They don't have a Gunter Gable Williams burger. That's bizarre. It's so dumb. They should. It's so stupid.
Right. And it's an interesting sauce because I'm not usually a you know barbecue steak sauce guy, but it's uh it's uh you saute onions, so I know you're in. Yep. Amen. Then deglaze with scotch, yeah, soy, brown sugar, mustard, and Worcestershire.
That's pretty basic. Wow, that's it. Yeah, that's good. That's Gunter Gable. Good Gunter.
Yeah, yeah, right. Uh all right. Now, one other thing. Sure. I promised people before you came here I wasn't gonna talk too much about Connecticut burgers, and I won't, except for Shady Glen, which is home of the cheese wings, right?
Which the Bernice burger, right? Which you call a stunt burger. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay.
Because if for those of you that don't know and have never seen the flying nun, what happens is you you put the you put the burger down and you put four slices of uh of cheese on the burger, and then the guy uh makes uh like a like a freaky and then lifts them up and they stay erect in the air, like uh like like a you know, if you've never seen the flying nun, it's more like a manta ray. It'll look like a crown, it's like a strange cheese crown. Yeah, yeah. Uh and the problem is that if you're gonna take it outside, they put it into a box and kind of and then it kind of gets it. You gotta kinda see it before.
Well, you gotta see it. Yeah, then you gotta walk to the back of the restaurant and watch them as they're doing it. Exactly. Yeah, uh, and get the ice cream, yada yada. But in the thing, you're like they're use a squishy bun.
I'm like, no, they don't. They use the Kaiser. And then I looked at my phone at the pictures, and the last two times I went, they're Kaiser, but they must have switched to squishy because you have squishy on the thing. So they did switch. Yes, they did.
Why? They were one of the people that turned me back to Kaiser. I had been anti-Kaiser for years. I'm like, the Kaiser, because I grew up hard roll here in New York, where it's like buttered roll, butter roll, butter roll, Kaiser with poppy on it. Boom.
So generations go through and changes happen. This is I mean, Dave, this is why this book is so so revised. Every word in this book is revised because that kind of stuff happens. I have to go back and ask. People are laughing, like, oh, what their buns change?
Yeah, a lot of places changed their buns. Why the hell would you switch away from Kaiser? They got good Kaiser. Why the hell would you switch away? Who knows?
The bake baker could have died. I mean, there's a place in there in Connecticut also. Harry's, Harry's Harry's place. Which I haven't been to. And I never been, I haven't been to the one in New London, so I asked my son to go there.
So Fred's. Fred's Fred's. Fred's, Frank, Frank, whatever. The shanty, whatever the shanty. Shanty, yeah.
Also the one on the water, I might be. Yeah, yeah. I never been. But I said my son. He's 21 now, so he can also have a beer.
There you go. Um, but uh what we're talking about, Harry's uh Harry's Harry Harry's Harry. Yeah. In Colchester. They actually they j they just changed their their uh their buns after a hundred and something years because the baker went the baker went out of business across the street.
Well, you know, the way it goes. Make them yourself, dude. So that's what this book is all about. It's all about details like that. All right.
So in the in the time we have left, basically the book kind of divides I divide it, and you don't, I do, into like places that are there because they have a stunt burger, which is stunt burger is like anything that's like six burgers tall or it's completely inedible because it's so huge, or you know, like uh those are stunt burgers. Although I thought an interesting take on the stunt burger was the one that serves it on a seven-inch, which is large people, if you're not doing the math bun uh in a pie plate cut into quarters. Right. You know what I mean? Somewhere out west.
Yeah. Shareable. That's mirrors, Oklahoma. That takes it away from stunt, I think. Like once it once it's eatable.
Yeah, yeah. It's true. It does take away, but it's stunt-ish. So that I mean, stunt should be used loosely, obviously, because stunt today's stunt burgers are much different, or any kind of stunt food at all, is much different than the stunt stunt burgers of history. Right.
Right. But people had to make a mark. So I guess the Bernice is there because someone's like, we need something that's going to set us apart. It's the cheese wings. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Are steamed cheeseburgers a stunt? Um no. Steam cheese is just method.
It's just a stupid speaking of so we're gonna get into methods. Then there's uh the the ones that have a history vibe and or a family thing or places you just want to be that's the kind of mental mentality of not they're not necessarily some of them are dive bars, but they're not it's it's more about the police. Exactly. Right. Uh then there are ones that are just excellent.
Yeah. And you're just like this I has has to be here because it tastes good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Uh and then there are differences.
Ones that have a different way of making them. And that's kind of what I want to hone in on these differences. So like of all the ones let's start with stupid difference. What people think are stupid. Like but you take note of in here where the veg is placed.
So there's one I remember that does a double patty with veg in between and you're like unusual. Unusual. That's uh pla the spot. Right. The spot in car carpentaria, California.
You're gonna remember much better than I will. And then and then there's a couple that put the veg underneath. Yes. Which so what are your thoughts? Having had this a million ways.
I had in in in Cloquette uh Minnesota. So what are your thoughts? So well there's a lot of reasons why. I mean the b the the lettuce and the vegetables in between is a odd thing for me. I'm I'm I don't know why that that's happening.
Because uh it doesn't make that burger taste any different I don't think. Um the reason that you have vegetables on the bottom, is they're literally just prepping the bun for the burgers that the patties that are showing up. So someone else can prep the buns, and then the a grill cook will then just drop the patties on top and they get wrapped up. It's just for speed. Right.
That's the only reason why. There's no reason why it's on the top in the first place. Then if you have a po-boy, like at the restaurant right now, the the hamburger po-boy, most of the of the stuff is on top. And who knows why? I just the way they've always done it.
They can still get them right now? The poker? Yeah, so up until today, that's it today. Oh my God. So you have to be listening live on the Patreon and going to get it.
Otherwise, you're toasting. Another reason, John and Quinn to be a member of the Patreon, am I right? I think so. So many reasons. So many, so many, because you now just got your last call to last call for po-boy bread.
Um now, uh another one, a difference is when you're gonna go double burger some places, and this I hadn't even thought about because I don't travel the country looking for burgers. Stupidly, I guess, uh, is sometimes when you order a double, they make two patties. Right. And sometimes they'd put two balls and go Sheboygan and like push them on. There actually is a restaurant from Sheboygan in here.
And you put and you and you push the uh the burgers down into a single patty. Which is double the size. No, and what are your thoughts on that? Which do you well like like So the original double in America was double meat, which literally just meant double the size of the meat patty? They would take two balls and press them together and you have a double.
The double itself, the double patty burger, may have been, it was very likely invented by Bob's big boy. They were the first to actually invent a double patty burger on the same bun. Revolutionary, but a long, long time ago. I think probably I believe it was the twin twenties that was invented, way back when. Um so uh which really I can't I find totally fascinating is that these places are going away.
But there's a place right near New York. Uh the white man in Jersey, if you ask for a double, you get double double meat, not double patty. Uh, do they call it uh Taylor Ham or do they call it pork roll? So if you're if you're in the north, it's Taylor Ham, right? Oh no, I'm getting this wrong.
I think it's in the north it's Taylor Ham in the south, where it's actually from is called pork roll. So do you ever get the burger with the with the tailor? No, it's too salty. Oh, come on. No, I like I've I'll take an egg sandwich with a with a tailor.
But you only have one burger in here, I think that has an egg on it. Yes. Yes. That's true. There are the eggs on burgers are not a common thing in the U.S.
Although you don't you don't like your Elmago uh desfritas with an egg on it, caballero style? Cabello? Cabello cabelo. It's not caballero. I don't know.
I can't remember. I don't know whatever. We don't speak Spanish, unfortunately. Um but yeah, so but an egg, no, I don't get it that way. It's collecting it.
I know it's a good one. In fact, actually, next month, we're featuring that burger on the menu with the egg on it. What? But it's a lightly scrambled egg. Did you know that?
There? No, no, I didn't know that. This is from the Texas Tavern in uh Roanoke, Virginia. Oh, cool. All right.
It's a good burger. Uh so uh by the way, uh, there is a difference, and you can read the two-page spread on this between sliders and mini burgers. Uh, and George prefers the mini burger. I'm just kidding, I'm just messing with it. So a mini, a mini burger is when you go to uh when you go to a cocktail party and something like where the a tiny stale bun and a large undercooked in the middle but dead cold uh piece of meat in between.
That's a that's a mini burger. If the first thing you say is that's so cute, you know it's not gonna taste good. Wow. I mean, that's the thing about it. If you thought, oh, that's so cute, and then you taste it and you go, oh God, I've been duped again.
Yeah. By the way, my personal burgers at home are quarters. Quarters. Yeah. Like a quarter pound, quarter pound.
Of course, yeah. Right. Uh all of these ones, like so many of these are like half-pound burgers. My God. Yeah.
Which are great. You can have them, but you're not going to want to go back and eat one tomorrow. You're going to wait another two or three months before you have that burger again. Yeah. All right.
So let's talk about some of the odd ones. First of all, let's talk about ones that are f uh floured, breaded, or contain bread. So there's the what was the what was the one that had biscuits in it that's not part of the not in Mississippi? That is the Snappy Lunch in Mount Airy, North Carolina. And how is that one?
So it's fantastic. Right. That one's more bread than meat. It's more bread than meat. They actually take yesterday's biscuits, uh, which are become stale.
Not really actually, but they've they're they're not really moist anymore, and they crumble them up and throw them into the beef. Yeah. And describe the slug burger, which is more of a slug burger is similar, except uh a lot of people won't give up their recipes. So I've had to make it up my own. It's an interesting history.
Yours is beef only, though, because it's you, even though it actually probably contains pork. So today, if you get a slug burger in the South today, it likely is not neither beef and neither beef or breadcrumbs. It's uh pork and some kind of soy flour. So it's some kind of flowering, you know, extender that has nothing to do with with you know with uh with uh glutens or anything. I mean it's it's not the original way it was made was ground beef and yesterday's b bread, obviously.
And today it's pork and um pork and uh extenders like soy flour. And most of the slugs are fried, correct? So most of them are, yeah. Today there are, but in the old days they were cooked on a flat top. So you can still go to certain places that will not call it a slug, but they will cook it on a flat top.
It'll be beef and and breadcrumbs, not not the uh soy extender. So here's one to talk where we're gonna start talking now. Wet flat top or the dry flat top. Well, the wet flat top is traditional and that's still they still exist around the country. They're still out there.
Um a lot of them have switched from Tell Well, tell tell the folks what's the one. So there's a wet grill. A wet grill is literally a square or some kind of you know, um not round uh skillet that is set uh that is actually set um in usually some kind of a a cooktop, but it's it's made has has uh actual sides on it so that it has a it's a tank so that the the actual grease can't escape. So the burgers are cooked in grease. Um that's how I like to do it at home, by the way.
It's a great way to do it. Yeah. Like if if you're the cast iron man, I like to cook. I know you don't put bacon on your own burgers, but like I ran, but I I cook the bacon, now I have the bacon fat. Yeah, it's good.
And so then always save it. Always save that bacon. Wet cook. Yeah. I like a wet.
Wet is good. Wet's very important, but a wet is traditional, it's very difficult. It's also dangerous as hell, that's not what you're doing. Who needs their eyes and hands? See, in the old days, uh, all these stands that were burger stands were made of like just foul material and tent material and and old wood, and they would took cook in these tanks, the tanks would spill over and they'd burn the whole tent down, and that would be it.
So at some point, when burgers started to become brick and mortar, they found safer ways to make burgers where they would actually have the grease would run off into a grease catch. And that's the that's how we made smash burgers. All right, so wait, so so back to these slugs and snappies. Snappy burger, slug burger, fight. Which one?
Yeah. Uh the slug for sure. Slug? Yeah. The ones that I have had in in northern Mississippi uh have been the perfect ratio of beef to uh beef to bread.
Okay. Even even a sweet. Beef to bread to bread. Beef to bread to bread. Exactly.
Yeah, well, you can you compare the snappy lunch one, it's like more akin to a crab cake of beef. Right, exactly. Which it tastes great, sure. Why not? But if I had to pick one, I'd probably I'd probably go for the slug burger.
A little more beef. Yeah. Hey, could you make the snappy lunch one as a standalone grabbing device? What do you mean grabbing? Like or like a like on a plate without a bun and all the accoutrement, like a crab.
Yeah, you could, definitely. It'd be grass. More of a croquet. Wow, that sounds good. That sounds great.
Yeah. I like that. Burger croquette. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh okay, so wait, back to where we were going. On wetness. Oh, no, on flour first. You where was the place where the they make the patty and then they throw it into flour before they griddle it? How about that, right?
Yeah. It's a place called the Triple X, Triple X in uh where is it? In Indiana. And and uh they're on a flat top, right? It's on a flat top.
So like how much of like a fawn do they get? Do they have to scrape the hell out of their flat top all the time? They probably do. I from what I saw, it looked like a pretty well seasoned flat top and didn't have to do too much. But they definitely did hand patty these these uh burgers and then throw them into uh like a thing of flour right next to the flat top and then throw it in the grill.
Sure, the health department loves that. Oh, sure they love it. What's that what's happening is the that the uh the obviously the rendered fat is going into that into that uh flour and it's basically almost like a chicken fried steak in a way. How is it? It's fantastic.
So you is like is this something that see this is the kind of thing. This is when I'm reading this book. That's what I'm looking for. Good. Okay.
You know what I mean? Stuff where like, and I think our list our listeners are gonna be like, maybe I'll try that. You should try it. Yeah. Absolutely.
But uh but they're doing it on a super well seasoned, so it's basically and it's rendering its own grease. And also, here's something I think people most people don't understand. Professionals, I mean, some of these places have like griddles and flat tops that are so old that they're not flat anymore. But you know, it's a lot of these places like you know, either they pitch their flat top on purpose so that the grease runs off, or if they want to keep it in one place, they can level it. Yeah.
A lot of home like stoves aren't leveled properly. Absolutely not. You know what I mean? Or if you want it tilted, they're not tilted the way you want. In other words, a home stove is often not what you want it to do.
Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? That's why you should go leave it to the professionals and come to Hamburg America. Well, you should always go to Hammer. You should always go to Hamburger America.
You definitely should always go to Hamburger America. Okay. Uh interestingly, look, we're gonna go loose. Let's talk about marinade. There are two different marinated burgers in your recipe in your in your book.
One is marin is fully cooked, thrown in a hot marinade, pulled directly from the marinade into onto the burger. One where it is cooked, marinated, cooked again, and then there are at least one, and no, there are two at least fully dipped burgers in jus after they are made. So describe describe that. Like is that a good thing? Do we want this in life?
Well, of course we want these things. Yes. Any kind of jus or marinade is great for burgers for sure. I mean, it's it's not traditional, but it it really does, uh, and it's a flavor enhancer. Especially the one of them you're talking about is a place called uh Fat Mose.
And they do have that's it's like a 17 or 12 or 17 spice, you know, uh Persian spice uh marinade that really does impart a hell of a flavor. Yeah. So the here's the issue I have on the one that's served in the marinade for a long time. I'm worried it's going to affect the texture of the meat, but if it's already been parcooked, it might not. I mean, none of these places, as far as I can tell, put like salt on the inside or acid on the inside of their meat before a long time before it's cooked, because that's anathema.
Oh, yeah, no, you can't. They someone made a mistake years ago, probably. And that's what happened. Yeah. That's where they changed.
Yeah. All right. Uh there's also a place that has an entire flat top where they put the meat on the flat top that's hot, and then scoop the raw meat off the top and then put it on the burger. And then they because I saw a picture of it, and then the bottom of it's cooked. What do they do with the leftover?
I just it's one of those I don't know. I I physically cannot, I physically I can't figure out how they're doing it. I don't know how he does it, but you can see he's doing it. And he's also not using traditional tools. He's using an actual uh trowel, like a bricklayer's travel to do it.
Kind of crazy. So speaking of uh of traditional uh on the way out, the broil broilator, did you get to see this broilator? Do I need to build one? Are they great? Do they make a fantastic burger?
But they make a great burger yeah but it's almost like a it's it's just like a it's like uh the toaster oven with a with a castar and skillet inside of it. They're perfect. All right I don't know what I don't know why we there's not more of them out there I'm gonna I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to reassear this so listen there's more to talk about we haven't even talked about loose meat which but like the 10 pounds of loose meat and it's like spread like a spider over the center of our country but you know we'll have to have you on to talk you did serve whose loose meat did you serve we just did uh Taylor's made right yeah which is in Marshalltown Iowa but if you want to know more you'll have to get the new version of Hamburger America by George Motz or visit him at hamburger america don't bother him if he's too busy but I'm sure he'll answer one or two questions. George thanks for coming back on cooking issues
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