February 3, 2012

• Hamburgers Are Us

  

  A Des Moines Burger at Zombie Burger

  Hamburgers are enigmas in a bun. Despite being the most popular meal of the masses, they also fulfill all gourmet criteria: They contrast hot (meat) with cold (lettuce), sugary sweetness (ketchup) with sour tang (pickles), and an acid kick (onion and tomato) with soothing alkalinity (bun). Textures range from charred to soggy while stacking every color of the rainbow, even Maytag blue. Novelist Tom Robbins even considers them spiritual.

  “A hamburger is warm and fragrant and juicy. A hamburger is soft and non-threatening. It personifies the Great Mother herself who has nourished us from the beginning,” he wrote.

  Burger sectarians observe strange rites. In his film, “Hamburger America,” director George Motz celebrated burger culture by visiting places like Dyer’s in Memphis, where burgers are deep fried in the same filtered grease they’ve been using for 90 years. “Somewhere in there are molecules from 1912. That’s what makes ‘em so good,” the owner tells Motz‘s camera.

  Unifying America

  In his book in “Hamburger Heaven” Jeffrey Tennyson wrote that burgers are “the one thing that unites Americans as a people.” Actually, hamburgers are quite a bit older than America. In the 13^th century, they rode into the Western world, literally, under the saddles of Mongol hordes, who ate them raw. Germans began cooking them, in Hamburg, like steaks. Over a century ago, nutritionist Dr. J. H. Salisbury recommended eating hamburgers at least 3 times a day. They then became known as Salisbury steaks.

  In popular lore, burgers were first served as sandwiches at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. However, Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, CT claims to have been selling them since 1900 and the town of Hamburg, NY claims they originated there in 1895. The Hamburger Hall of Fame agrees they were invented in 1895 but in Seymour, WI. In Oklahoma, it’s believed that Oscar Bilby was the first to serve burgers on a bun near Tulsa in 1891. The justices of history agree that hamburger and buns were legally married by 1912. In 1926, Maid-Rite, the first burger chain, opened in Muscatine. It expanded rapidly in the 1930’s along with diner architecture and both things came to represent affordable comfort during the Great Depression. By the 1930’s burgers had overtaken hot dogs as the most popular American dish. The cheeseburger appeared in the mid 1930’s.

  Since then burgers have inspired provincialism. As author Calvin Trillin puts it, “Anyone who doesn’t think the best hamburger place in the world is in his own hometown is a sissy.” Don Short, whose family has owned Taylor’s Maid-Rite in Marshalltown since 1928, has a more poignant illustration.

  

  “I have mailed frozen Maid-Rites now to at least 20 different people who were suffering from terminal cancer. They all grew up in Marshalltown and wanted to taste one more Maid-Rite before they died,” he said.

  Contemporary economic conditions have again ushered in a new phase of burger adoration. Burger corporation stocks rose steadily over the last five years without being phased by the 2008 collapse of the stock market. McDonalds’ tripled since late 2006. In the typically contrary nature of the burger though, the contemporary mania also developed a new upscale niche, particularly here in Des Moines.

  Ten years ago Old Homestead restaurant in New York City gained national notoriety by claiming the most expensive burger in America, a $41 special made with Kobe beef. $100 burgers popped up in Las Vegas restaurants within two years. After the stock market collapse of 2008, burger extravagance gave way to a new style of affordable excellence.

  

  Two Mit Burgers simmer in Elkader

  Iowa is the long time home to the most eclectic burger culture in America. Almost every meat eating Iowan has a special love for one unique hamburger or another. “Taverns,” “Tastees,” “Charlie Boys,” “Rossburgers, “Boozies,” “Canteens,”

  

  “Gunderburger’s,” “Wally’s,” and “Two mits” are all long time legends in one part of the state or another while remaining pretty much unknown outside that region. Maid-Rite on the other hand took their Iowa brand national.

  George Formaro, three times a James Beard Award semifinalist, has probably put more obsessive love into perfecting burgers than anyone in Iowa. He has created special burger recipes for Gateway Market, plus Gateway Market Café, Django, Centro, and Zombie Burger + Drink Lab.

  “I once thought that making a good burger was one of the easiest things in the kitchen. Now I think it’s one of the hardest. Economics comes into play at every turn. In the (grocery) market, you have to be aware that your burger mix is going to be compared on price more than anything else. And that means you have to keep it affordable. You aren’t as restricted in restaurants because diners are willing to pay more for burger than grocery shoppers are. So there we can use things like rib eye and even dry aged beef.

  “I loved using skirt steak, beef cheeks and hangar steak in our burger mixes from the beginning but those cuts became fashionable for steaks in the last few years, after 2008. So they became more expensive and harder to come by. We ended up with an even mix of brisket and chuck. It’s 75 percent lean and the brisket has enough collagen that the fat provides juiciness without the greasiness other similar mixes have. Our “Perfect Burger” is the same mix, it differs simply in the way it’s ground and cut – in a single direction so that round strands are rolled together with pockets that can trap juices,” Formaro said.

  Those mixes didn’t work in his restaurants though. Each restaurant’s burger mix required tweaking. “All our burgers at Centro are cooked over wood and at Django they’re cooked over gas grills. The fire at Django burns fat nicely, so we had to use a coarser grind there. Our mixes at Centro and Django are similar but there is an added (secret) cut of beef,” he explained. The tweaking worked, Gourmet featured Gateway’s among America’s best burgers and USA Today named Django’s exactly that.

  

  Zombie Burger brought a new set of challenges with a new specially designed flat top griddle as well as smaller patties with smaller prices.

  “The griddle we designed intentionally replicates cast iron pans. The salt seasoning we developed was designed to help form the crust (sear) on the burgers. Getting that crust right took months of testing and experimenting,” Formaro explained.

  Buns were not easy either. Formaro decided that the smaller patties demanded a different kind of bun texture. Cheeses were also difficult.

  “Personally, I think regular American cheese works awfully well on burgers. But diners who go out to restaurants don’t just want a basic burger. In a fine dining restaurant, they want some element of adventure included. So we offer more than 20 specialty burgers at Zombie, with exotic cheeses and other things,” he said.

  Formaro isn’t the only top chef who features burgers in his fine dining establishments. Jason Simon, twice a James Beard Award semifinalist, has similar love for humble burgers. However, he restricts burger options at Alba to just one, made with a mix of short ribs, hangar steak and New York strip.

  “I love the beef flavor I get from those cuts,” he explained.

  

  He also prefers a 75 percent lean mix. He cooks his burgers in carbon steel skillets heated over super high flames after being sprayed with “80 – 20” oil that has a high smoke point. Patties are “smashed” with a smaller frying pan after turning.

  “You have to have high heat to achieve the maximum sear,” Simon said, explaining that flavor in beef comes from a Maillard Reaction, the scientific name for the process that does for proteins what caramelization does for carbohydrates – bonding molecules at high heat while releasing new flavors. This might be the latest thing in burger love but it’s hardly new. Guess who wrote the following advice about searing beef for juiciness and flavor?

  “Thus as the exterior pores contract, the moisture contained within cannot escape any more but is imprisoned.”

  Not all that much has changed since Aristotle taught Alexander the Great how to cook burgers.

  Some Burger Legends of Des Moines

  

  At Big City Burger & Greens extras included roasted tomatoes, fried eggs, jardinière and fried prosciutto.

  

  Grandma Max’s “Big Max” contains four pounds of ground beef.

  Jethro’s “Adam Emmenecker,” which finished second in ESPN’s nation wide best sports sandwich contest, includes a half pound steak burger, plus pork tenderloin, brisket, bacon, chicken tenders, fried cheese and white cheddar sauce.

  

  Jesse’s Embers’ “Emburger” and Maxie’s “Maxieburger” are both half pound sandwiches that have been made the same way for over 40 years. The latter was dubbed “Happy Max” in Jeff Hagen’s book “Searching for the Holy Grill.”

  Christopher’s grinds their burgers from the trim of prime rib, filets and other middle meat adding shallots, garlic and salt for seasoning.

  

  George The Chili King and several Coney Islands serve loose meat burgers have been slow cooked in large seasoned batches for over half a century, .

  Quarter pound burger baskets are so popular that they account for over a quarter of all sales at High Life Lounge.

  Mullet’s “Gringo” includes half a pound of burger stuffed with jalapenos, bacon, cheese and barbecue sauce.

  Chef’s Kitchen’s specialty burger is a Maytag blue cheese take on the rarebit theme, where the burger, onions and cheese are steamed under a hood.

  Pickett’s Pub’s third-of-a-pound sirloin burgers are flame grilled. Their famous triple burgers are not for sissies.

  Trostel’s Greenbriar grills steak trim burgers over hot open flames and serve them with any sauce in their vast European repertoire.

  • 5:40 pm
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