Whatever Happened To The Hamburger?

so beefy!

Whatever happened to the hamburger?

It seems like you can't find a good, old fashioned, straight up burger anymore.

The hamburger used to be a menu item at every restaurant, sometimes with cheese if you liked, and eventually a couple other variations came along and they decided to pretty much form a hamburger band that occupied about one-third of a menu page.

It looked something like this:

• Hamburger - 1/4 pound burger, with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, ketchup and mustard
• Cheeseburger - same as above with a slice of cheese on it
• Double hamburger - (you guess it) two hamburger patties with all the same toppings
• Bacon Double Cheeseburger - heaven in your mouth

And that was fine.  If you wanted something a little more risque, you might venture over to McDonald's and have the Big Mac because it had a special sauce - but that was a specialty burger, and almost the holy grail of all hamburgers in its own way.

Then along came the chicken burger; covered in that disgusting mayonnaise. And someone said, hey, let's take the mayo from the chicken burger and put it on the regular burger.  And my heart sank a bit.

Now, I've been to places where the hamburgers take up an entire menu page.  And they have ridiculous names:

• Squakin' Rockin' Turkey Burger
• The Something What Too Big To Be Too Big Burger
• The Outback Westerner

 And so on, and so on.

I've also been to some restaurants that are totally devoted to hamburgers.  It's like you're an assembly line worker, getting to pick all the pieces of your Frankenstein Hamburger.  It's all so gourmet.  It's not even really a hamburger anymore so much as it is a dinner entree. 

what is that bubbly stuff on the bottom part of the bun?  does this burger have boils?

First you start by picking your bun - white bun, whole wheat bun, 12-grain, bleached wheat to look like white bun, or gluten-free-vegan-inspected-bun.

Then you pick what type of patty you want - beef burger, chicken burger, turkey burger, or veggie burger.  Wait a sec... I thought we were having hamburgers here?

So you start to get my point.  You move on to choose from eleven kinds of imported cheese, thirty different vegetable options, and ten different sauces (eight of which are just fucking mayonnaise with a different kind of spice stirred into it).  I'll just have ketchup and mustard please and thank you.

"Can I take your order?'
"uh... gosh... there's a lot to choose from... maybe I'll try the... uh... what's the Chef's Omega Sauce?"
"It's a garlic infused, sun-dried tomato blended mayonnaise, lightly seasoned with lemon juice."
"Can I have this 'Omega Supreme Burger' without it?"
"Absolutely!  Would you like to try the Pepperjack Mayo instead?"
"Uh... no. Not really.... listen, do you just have a juicy hamburger with ketchup, mustard, lettuce, onion, and tomato?  Maybe a pickle on the side?"
"You mean you don't want a pretentiously spiced up mayonnaise on your burger?  Fine.  Which type of bun would you like?"
"The kind hamburgers come on."

You know, you can still get just a plain hamburger at McDonalds?  Yeah, the fucking thing is, like, seventy-nine cents or something and it tastes alright for seventy-nine cents.  I'm not saying it's great, but for seventy-nine cents you get a bun, a patty, some ketchup, and a pickle.  I don't even think it's on the menu, but they do make it. 

So, whatever happened to the hamburger?  I miss it.

- ryan of the ryan fan club

Mayonnaise Is Stupid

... I dislike mayo so much that I actually recorded a song about it.  Yep, "Mayonnaise Is Stupid"... and I really hate it.  Mostly though, what I hate is when people put mayo on hamburgers.  This trend started a long time ago and it's just gross. I HATE that when I go somewhere for a burger I need to ask the people working if there's mayo on it.

Ryan; circa right about now-ish.

This one time, I got into an argument with a girl at a Wendy's about it.  Here was the conversation, word for word...

Ryan: ... yeah, I'd like a Baconator please with no mayonnaise on it.
Idiot Wendy's Girl: No mayo?
Ryan: Yeah.  I'm allergic
Idiot Wendy's Girl: You can't be allergic to mayo.
Ryan: Yeah, I'll die if I eat it.
(Then my friend jumped into the conversation to tell her that I'm not really allergic to mayonnaise.)
Idiot Wendy's Girl: Why don't you want mayonnaise?
Ryan: I don't like it. I think it's gross.
Idiot Wendy's Girl: But... why? I've never heard of anyone not liking mayo before.
Ryan: Yeah, well, I don't.
Idiot Wendy's Girl: I don't get it.  That's just silly.
Ryan: You know, all you need to do here is push a button.  I mean, there's gotta be a "no mayonnaise button" or something.  It's not like you're actually making the burger for me.
Idiot Wendy's Girl: But I still don't understand why you don't like mayonnaise.
Ryan: ... just push the fucking button.

The Mayo-Nay-Nays

At this point, she just stared at me blankly like I was from another goddam planet while I became visibly agitated.

And this is why I tell people I'm deathly allergic to it.  After arguing with this girl for a good ten minutes, I gave her my money and that was that.  And without fail there was fucking mayo on my Baconator.  It was there and then that I decided to not eat at Wendy's again until they started making their burgers without mayo.

I don't want to rant on too much about the white death, but there was this other time I was at a restaurant and I asked the waitress if the burgers had mayo on it.  "Nope," she replied.  "Just our burger sauce."  Perfect, I thought to myself, I'll take one with fries and a beer.  When the burger arrived to my table I took a closer look at this burger sauce because, well, I've had enough fucking mishaps with mayonnaise in my life to give me a bit of a complex about it.  The burger sauce was pretty creamy, lightly colored, and... well, fuck it, it was fucking mayonnaise.  I can distinguish mayo like Sherlock Holmes can find fucking clues.

So I asked her what was in the sauce.

"Ketchup, barbecue sauce, and mayonnaise."
"... but I said I didn't want any mayonnaise."
"Yeah, and it's not mayonnaise.  It's our burger sauce."

I just closed my eyes and imagined myself setting the restaurant on fire.

Jesus Christ, I fucking despise mayonnaise.