Life is complicated. Whether you’re a teenager at school getting bullied for being different, you’re in your late twenties going through an existential crisis because you’re bored with your desk job while simultaneously starting to question the grounds of capitalism, or you’re a grown adult with a mortgage, two kids, and wondering if you’re going to have to pay for one of your kid’s art degrees just for them to tell you, that you have trauma dumped on them. So why on earth is the one meal that is supposed to be simple, so goddamn complicated today?
We as humans have complicated everything today. Whether it’s relationships, genders, or even trying to find the meaning of life and going into a rabbit hole, but why did we have to complicate a burger?
Does a burger really have to be loud like the oppressed fighting for their basic rights and asking the world to put an end to genocides?
A key to a good burger is keeping it simple. You really don’t need to undercut your competitor by going to the drawing board and complicating things like Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creating a conspiracy theory that doesn’t exist. Not everything needs to be strategised like a multinational corporation.
On a slightly warm summer day in Stockholm, after waiting for hours in a long queue at Funky Chicken Food Truck, I had the best burger of my life so far. I thought I was exaggerating at first too, because this was my first meal of the day after a night of karaoke and questionable life choices. But nah, one bite of that juicy smash burger, and I finally felt what heaven tasted like, even though I was told all my life that I would go to hell if I ate beef.
And guess what made it so perfect? It was how god intended a burger to be. The perfect ratio of bun to meat, a perfect consistency between a crispy yet juicy beef patty, with an appropriate number of pickles, perfectly melted cheese, a sauce that was simple and no tomatoes that would slip out of your burger, making you crave for more.
Isn’t that what you would want if you’re an owner of a restaurant? A delicious meal your customers can enjoy so they would return frequently and talk about it for days and recommend it to more people. So why are we complicating something so beautiful?
It’s really no surprise that these guys have won the award for best burger in Sweden for five consecutive years.
The second time I had a burger close to this was in Copenhagen, when I tried the fried chicken burger from Poulette and had a tear in my eye. If you have read my Copenhagen post, you would know that I’ve described it as an explosion of sweet and spice every time you take a bite. And guess why that burger also hits the spot and would make you crave for more? It’s simple.
Which comes to my previous point: do you really have to be the loudest in the room always to get your point across? If you’re fighting for your basic human rights, then yes. If you have to fight for a seat at the table so that men can notice that women are equals too and they have oppressed them for years, then yes. But does a burger really have to be bold and loud like a kid’s squeaky shoes that lights up when they walk?
These guys have done it by letting their cooking do the talking. Why does everyone have to hop on to a fad just for your sales to skyrocket, and not sustain in the long run? I mean it’s called a fad for a reason, right?
I’ve been mentioning that a burger should be simple right, so let’s talk about it. A good burger should essentially consist of a perfect bun, good quality meat, some melted cheese, preferably processed cheese, and a sauce of your choice. Now, I can tolerate lettuce, even a bit of raw onions or even pickles, but tomatoes nah. Like you know that a tomato is going to slip out irrespective of what you do, so why add it?
A perfect burger is one that should have the perfect bun-to-meat ratio, not one where you’re left with more meat at the end or just buns and no meat. With all these fads where you have ten meat patties on your burger or you have a patty that’s wider than your buns, like, what’s the point of it? If you’re that hungry, order another burger if you think it’s too small.
And the issue with adding too many things on your burger is that it would make it a structural problem. Because the perfect burger is supposed to be had with one hand, maybe even two is fine, but not with a knife and fork. It was never engineered to be had that way. It’s something that should be enjoyed by people of all social classes, whether you’re the King of England or a taxi driver working long hours. So, for the love of god, please stop eating it like y’all belong to a royal family looking down on the rest.
You can add gourmet products, different kinds of cheese, or even gold, as some people do, but the question you have to ask is, would it make your burger taste better? It would definitely make it look better and aesthetically pleasing, but would it make something that already tastes perfect even better?
Also, what’s the point of adding a sunny side up to a burger? If I wanted eggs, avocados, bacon, I could get an avocado on toast with a poached egg and bacon on the side, right? Someone needs to put an end to this monstrosity. Because you’re going to have a burger that flows, it’s going to get messy, you’re going to have it all over your face, and in order to avoid that, you’ll end up eating it with a knife and fork like a snob.
If y’all feel like “Who is this random dude is ranting on the internet?”, you should know Anthony Bourdain felt the same way too. Think I’m lying? Watch his video on the perfect burger. Probably, there’s a reason his work speaks so loudly even after he’s long gone, and it’s because people like me are as lost as he was, and we’re all trying to figure out life.
Maybe that’s the thing about food, and perhaps life too. Not everything needs to be complicated, aesthetically pleasing, or designed to impress people who have no meaning or purpose in their life. Sometimes you just need a good bun, a good patty, some melted cheese, and a sauce that knows when to shut the fuck up. There is beauty in simplicity.
– KK
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