Food & books 06 Mar 2006 09:51 am
Hamburgers and Fries by John T. Edge
Saturday, rather than fields of daffodils in Cades Cove, brought us the library instead. After getting selections for school such as our composer of the month (Hummel), artist (Reynolds), biography (Patrick Henry), and fun reads on pottery, figure skating, and Van Gogh’s Table, I also picked up Raising Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World.
But I need a little break from Relational Aggression. Mean Girls Grown Up is still a good read; better when I skim over some of the testimonials and just stick to the author’s input. My mind has shifted to analyzing almost every conversation I can observe or be a part of, and picking out where RA is present. I needed a respite.
The cookbook section is generally where I head for a such a time. Big cookbooks, the kind with food and regional chat in them, for real reading and not just cooking experiments. We had cheeseburgers and fries on our evening menu because after a day of hiking (like we’d planned) we always want a big heavy meal. What I really wanted was one of my dad’s grilled onion burgers and his perfect fries. One of those days where he’d pop off the couch and heat up the fryer, dump in some perfect potatoes and we’d sit and ponder over sci-fi if the fry makes the ketchup warm or the ketchup makes the fry cool?
John T. Edge’s little book, part of a series, called Hamburgers and Fries jumped out at me. I started it in the car and finished it while David snored on the couch. i’d made our cheeseburgers for dinner: sauted mushroom and havarti on top, with toasted buns. And the fries: double dipped wonders made with fresh potatoes and just perfect.
Edge was thorough. What Schlosser did with Fast Food Nation and Spurlock did with SuperSize Me, he’s done with greasy-spoon burgers. He ate alot of them. Not a McDonald’s fan, he briefly touched on gourmet burgers running over $50 apiece, topped with truffles and made with foie gras, and then spent the majority of the book on every variation possible in regional diners.
Which brings me to the mistitle of the book. Fries get a mere 1/8th of the book. He believes their high point to have not yet come, for their history is not nearly as long as the burger’s. Well, okay, but in the field of variations out there, and when he quotes one restaurant as having had worked 8 months on getting thier fry recipe “just right”, it would seem more of the book could have covered it. McDonald’s even has it’s own fry research fascility, and one could argue, built thier chain on fantastic fast food fries.
Still, his venture into the world of burgers is amazing. He goes from every region: steamers in the North East, bean burgers in the Southwest, so called “Slug” burgers in the deep south, and the real classics everywhere in between. There are a few recipes along the way, and cooking techniques should want to try to emmulate some of these concoctions. There are also TONS of big vocabulary words and big food words, foreign words, strange words. True, I was still tongue-tied from having read a long theological article out loud to David on Friday over the phone, but I”m no food writing neophyte; it seems to me that John T. Edge likes to have his thesausus handy and that some of the launguage was every bit as pretentious as those $59 burgers stuffed with gourmet ingredients, just to prove they could do it.
My burger was great and I learned a bit about the history of the American classic to boot. “Break Time is Over” as dad would say, and today, it’s back to RA.
on 07 Mar 2006 at 3:05 pm 1.Cathy said …
I read Raising Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World. I found it to be pratical and helpful. The author seemed to hit it just right. Yes, there are legitimate ADDs out there, but far fewer than presumed. Most supposed “ADD” kids learn differently than how schools are set up, thus the problems and frustations felt on all sides. I found myself going, “yep, that’s James!” I suspect you will find some of Andrew in that book as well. I’m sure you will be able to express far more eloquently (or succintly - ha!) just what you like and dislike about the book when you read it. As for me, I didn’t go that deep, I just know I liked it and it was confirmation that we were doing the right thing to homeschool James (and the others too, but esp. our little red-head).