Do we need a burger nanny state policy?

Save the burger from mutations, health labels and tattoo parlours, says Helen Razer.

The OTT Twisties burger* at Burger Head, Penrith. Source: Burger Head

It was 2012, I think, that I noticed radical transformation to the burger. It must have been ’round then, as by 2013, I began yelling at my pants for refusing to fit me. It was also in that year very fashionable people began declaring, “The burger trend is so OVER.” This is usually a reliable sign that a food trend has just begun.

There can be very little doubt that you are also familiar with recent mutations* to the burger.

First, you have noticed the ubiquity of the thing. Burgers, especially those that guarantee either a “gourmet” experience or a quintuple bypass, are everywhere. Once, burgers were found only in fish’n’chip joints, franchise restaurants, possibly on your pillow after a big night out with the girls. Now, they’re not only in chic, dedicated inner-city joints owned by persons whose forearms are covered in burger-themed tattoos. This New Burger appears in every app and every suburb and the number of burger menus that appear in my letterbox have started to ruin my love of junk mail.

You have surely also noticed that these burgers rarely contain a basic meat, cheese and condiment mix. You have also surely noticed that these burgers rarely go for less than ten bucks. You may also have been tempted, as old Pants-less here was, to embrace the wide availability of this burger descendant and give scant thought to cholesterol or cost.

You’ll feel joy with this indulgence ... usually followed by an immense feeling of self-hatred.

Look. I am not saying that shoving chips or even poutine inside a bun is intrinsically bad. We may even agree that these are moments rich in culinary genius.

I am, however, suggesting that someone needs to be the Nanny for the state.

There are many persons like me who suffer a sort of Adult Deficiency disorder and if my poor choices are marketed as positive choices, I will make these choices repeatedly.

And, the New Burger almost always makes positive claims for itself. (N.B. The ramen burger need not make any claims at all, as it is plainly the food of gods.) It is usually sold as a thing with “health” benefits. In the case of something like the poutine burger—and one such delicious crime does exist in Sydney—this can only be a mental health claim. You’ll feel joy with this indulgence. (True. But, in my case, this is usually followed by an immense feeling of self-hatred. But, as noted, I have problems.)

We also find nutritional health claims made for burgers. These may be made only relative to other burgers on a single menu: as in “try our Health Burger. It won’t kill you so fast as the others!”. These are more commonly made in the form of “hormone-free meat” or “non-GMO” or “local”. All noble aims, to be sure, but these items are still burgers and we all know that even if vegan they are a sometimes-food. Mum wouldn’t recommend that you eat that much bread for dinner.

I am not saying that shoving chips or even poutine inside a bun is intrinsically bad.

And the New Burger has become a dinner food. At the point the burger, initially devised as a cheap and portable food for low-paid workers, crossed the ten-dollar threshold, it necessarily moved for many of us into that more formal eating category.

Let’s not declare, as others did, that the burger is over. That would be a tragedy. Let’s just say that there’s a Burger Bubble and we must save this sometimes-food from the burger economy.

As an SBS Foodie, you hardly need the provocation, but I’m gonna say it anyhow: cook ’em yourself. If, like me, you have the Adult Deficiency problem, a home burger—which need not be as healthily disappointing as the one famously described in this Not Safe For Work Eddie Murphy moment—can have its naughtier properties more strictly controlled. These include, obviously, the astounding profit margin collected by bionic burger joints.

Popping the Burger Bubble with home-cooking might seem cruel in the short-term, but it’s a long-term community service. Go grill.

 

* In full disclosure, SBS Food HQ is a pantless office owing to delicious bun mutations like Burger Head's Twistie Burger. 

 

Helen Razer is your frugal food enthusiast, guiding you to the good eats, minus the pretension and price tag in her weekly Friday column, Cheap Tart. Don't miss her next instalment, follow her on Twitter @HelenRazer.