There aren’t may memories from that time, obviously, but I remember that burger.

There’s no photo of a mega-burger because I never order those things and no pic of the original burger (it was about 1969 and I was about 3) but there’s a nice pic of bluebells because I like them.

[extract below]

I’ll just say it. I don’t “get” burgers. Why are they so popular in pubs and restaurants?

I don’t mean ordinary burgers like McDonalds or Burger King which, love them or loathe them, you can at least pick them up and eat them. Although why you would is anyone’s guess.

I just have a rule about the idea of “Gourmet Burgers”. If you make your own burgers they can of course be lovely, but anything that has to have a steak knife or some sort of stake through it to hold it together for the short walk from the kitchen to your table, No. A baby’s-head-sized ball of mince or a whole chicken breast with onion rings in a bun... Onion rings IN THE BUN! What?!

Don’t start me on Smash Burgers either; someone just made that up for a laugh.

But I’ll never forget my first one: That Burger.

The general enshittification of our food does my head in. It’s American of course, which is partly why I don’t like it. It seems that everything now has to have cheese on it.

There is a specific ring of hell reserved for whoever came up with Hunter’s Chicken. He’s spending eternity pushing a massive chicken with a razor-sharp beak up a hill. He’s there with the guy who thought it would be cool to put lumps of cheese in a can of beans.

You can do a million lovely things with the ingredients in that burger so why do this? And don’t even start me on the dreadfulness of that much brioche (brioche? why? what’s that about?) or, worse, cheap, horrible baps. A friend once did a challenge of eating a 32oz burger. If you ate the whole plate, your party got their meals for free. I saw him the next day at work:

“How did it go?”

“I couldn’t do it”

“It was a lot of meat to eat in one go”

“Oh, I ate the meat, it was the bread! I’ve never seen so much bun!”

I am getting to That Burger, I promise, but I’m on a roll (no pun intended).

Let’s take it from the top. Or bottom.

The bun

My first instinct, especially at a restaurant, in a chair, at a table, with condiments and cutlery and wearing clothes I’d rather not cover in food is “excuse me, my dinner seems to have accidentally come in a bun”. Why?

In a fast food joint, OK, but when you are sat in a semi-formal setting it’s ridiculous. It is also almost certainly an over-processed mess of ingredients, even if it’s from a local bakery that the proprietor raves about.

At a push they can make it an open sandwich with the top of the bun (the slightly nicer bit, toasted of course) on the bottom and the rest of the ingredients on top. I don’t care what happens to the other bit of the bun; maybe that’s what the guy pushing the chicken up the hill gets for the rest of his miserable death. But this opens up the opportunity to choose something nice instead, like a toasted flatbread or simply nothing.

The sauce

This is trickier. I’ve made a bit of a rod for my back here as I am still writing with the conventional idea of a burger in mind. Later when I suggest alternatives to any type of burger the sauce question looks completely different.

If we’re going with a burger in some sort of bun though – ketchup.

You can mix it with other things like mustard, sriracha, horseradish or whatever you want, but it has to be based on proper tomato-based ketchup.

NOT MAYONNAISE! Who are you people? And do not mix the ketchup with mayonnaise. That combination is almost sacred in our house, but this is not a prawn cocktail.

Additional fillings

This is where I lose it a bit. Why does anyone who cares about flavour and what they eat need chilli con carne, pulled pork, or any other separate dinner on top of the beef burger in a bun that shouldn’t even be there? You’ll either not taste the burger, in which case don’t have one, or you will taste the burger because the other thing is not helping. And it makes the already ridiculous bun obsolete. Just don’t.

Veg and salad are fine of course, if you like that sort of thing: Big slices of tomato, red onion, shallots or anything like that are lovely. I’ve never seen the point of the lettuce as it doesn’t stand either the heat or the flavour, but you do you.

Gherkins

If you don’t like gherkins or other pickles, then you don’t like burgers, so have something else.

Cheese

Why? It’s a beef burger. When did we start thinking cheese went with meat in that way? And it’s never nice cheese that adds something to the experience, it’s just orange goo from a packet. Some of it, I kid you not, does not even contain cheese.

All of the cheese in the world that is worth eating is lovely, but it wouldn’t add much to a burger, and the burger takes away from the pleasure of just eating nice cheese; they’re just not compatible. That’s why they put that shitty ultra-processed stuff in – anything that actually tasted of something would just get in the way.

Say no!

The Burger

Now I’m back on side. Mince is a fabulous thing that people should really use more. The idea of taking some mince – tough cuts of meat tenderised by mincing – and doing something nice to them is almost magical. And that includes making them back into a lump with some flavourings added and then grilling or frying it. It really is worth making your own though.

Beef

Firstly don’t make the mistake of buying super-lean mince. The fat is dispersed through it by the mincing process so it melts through the burger to give it that lovely flavour, and as the fat is not in a lump like it would be on a steak, any genuinely excess fat runs through the beef basting it from the inside and runs to the surface. Any that is left in there is what makes the burger so lovely.

Do add finely chopped onion or shallot, garlic, ginger, herbs, spices or any other flavour you fancy. I made them with a little mustard, grated horseradish and finely chopped shallot once and they were just lovely.

Don’t add an egg to bind it, or breadcrumbs or anything else that changes the texture. If you put the meat and whatever you are adding for flavour into a bowl and knead it into a sort of paste, then it disperses the flavourings more evenly and you don’t need to stick it together with eggs.

Lamb

Lamb mince, obviously. I don’t need to tell anyone all the things that go with it but harissa is a good one, shawarma, dried mint, thai flavours, Indian flavours, anything really, but kneed it as above. Sumac goes really well with, say, thyme or mint.

Pork

This can be amazing because there is quite lot of fat in it. I used to chop chorizo into small pieces and add that, but now that sobrasada is easier to find in a lot of places adding that and kneading it through gives the whole thing that smoky paprika flavour, and nduja is a thing of beauty too. But again, the world is your oyster in terms of what you add.

Chicken

I almost never eat chicken now, but to be clear, a piece of chicken – a thigh or a breast – whatever you do to it is NOT a burger. You don’t see minced chicken in the UK really. You can get Turkey and I’m sure you can make that into a nice burger – the principle of mincing less attractive bits to make something better and more tender still applies I suppose. I don’t see the point though when there are very many more flavourful meats to make it from.

The alternatives

Meatballs, kofte, kibbeh, whatever. It’s less about the shape and size of the alternatives than it is about eating them with nicer things and in a nicer format (i.e. not in a bun). I’ll write a substack section on these over the summer as it’s the natural time for, for example, a lamb kofta on a fluffy flatbread with harissa, minted yogurt and a lovely salad with a peppy lemon and sumac dressing.

And don’t forget you don’t have to turn mince into any sort of lump to enjoy it. Keema curry, cottage pie, spag bol…

And finally, That Burger.

I was three or four I guess and we had been to a Drive-in Movie (I don’t remember which one). What I do remember is that on the way home we stopped at a roadside place and my parents bought me a burger. I’m pretty sure it was my first one.

And. I. Loved. It!

The original recipe.

It was a plain flat burger in toasted square white bread cut diagonally into a pair of triangles much bigger than the burger itself. Just ketchup. No fries. No supersized fizzy pop, just a burger in toast with ketchup.

Tweaks you could make, but why bother?

You’re allowed to add a gherkin, if you must, but just go with the original, or one of the alternatives above.