Morley Safer interviewed Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on 60 Minutes last night. For part of the interview the two ate at the Acme Oyster House, famed for their oysters, gumbo and other local favorites. While Jindal looked like he was tucking into a hearty bowl of gumbo, Safer played it safe by ordering a plain hamburger with fries.
It's a headline that writes itself. On May 11 in New Orleans, a man dressed in drag climbed through the drive-thru window of a Burger King with a gun and held up the store. "The burglar had a revealing bustline and a barrette in his hair as he demanded money and drove off into the night." I love how they analyze this tape and conclude that the thief is indeed a cross-dresser and not just wearing a disguise, "because his necklace matched the dress, his nails appeared to be painted, and the wig was not a dime-store wig." Says the expert analyst: "He was bein' pretty." The tale of the tape, after the jump.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a while since we "Grilled" someone here on AHT. Sorry 'bout that. But we're back, and with a most illustrious guest indeed. John T. Edge is the author of one of AHT's favorite burger books, Hamburgers & Fries, and he's here with some fascinating burger talk—and a recipe for bacon-infused burgers. So, without further ado, let's get Grillin'
Name: John T. Edge
Location: Oxford, Mississippi
Occupation: Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, contributing editor at Gourmet magazine, and writer for various folks
How often do you eat burgers? Or did all the burger-eating you did for the book turn you off burgers altogether?
I eat more burgers now after the book than I did before. I eat them about two a week: One is a burger I cook, and the other is one someone else cooks.
Where did you eat your most recent one?
At Phillip's Grocery here in Oxford. It's a much misunderstood burger. Phillip started out in Holly Springs, Mississippi, with a burger that has linkages to the doughburgers and slugburgers in the book. It's a burger with a strange consistency at its core. It's a creamy consistency—as if there were peanut butter in it: Is there soy in there? Is there bread in there? There's some extender in there, most likely a bread-based extender, and it crisps up the burger as it cooks. I like it drenched in chili. A nice chili cheeseburger, with pickle, mustard, and onion.
It's a great burger, but it's a tell of something else—it points its way to the early days of burgers. It's a remnant of an earlier time when almost all burgers had some sort of meat extender added. You could say it's a vestigial hamburger.
Interesting. So on that chilli cheeseburger, or any burger for that matter, do you prefer American, cheddar, or other?
I don't look down my nose at the processed slice of cheese goo because it melts really well. Of late, I've been taking those blue cheese crumbles in the tubs, you know what I'm talking about? I mix those in red wine vinegar or cheap balsamic, then add some spicy brown mustard (we use Zatarin's, but any spicy brown mustard will do—anything but yellow ballpark mustard). Mix that up, and you don't need any dressing. It's kinda self-contained.
Yesterday, we used a photograph of a farmer eating a burger at a cornhusking contest in Marshall County, Iowa, to illustrate an entry here. It's from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. Below, we offer a look at other noteworthy burger photos we dug up from the available online collection.
Most of the photos here were taken by Russell Lee (right; 1903–1986), who was invited to join the federally funded Farm Security Administration as part of a team of photographers charged with documenting the plight of the rural poor during the Depression. (Esther Bubley, Jack Delano, and Arthur Rothstein, whose photos are also represented below, were members of the project as well.)
These photos are truly a fascinating scrapbook of hamburger—and American—history, and they're available for reproduction online at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Reading Room (search the catalog for "hamburger"). Dig in!
Jason Perlow, oh he of of eGullet and Off the Broiler, is in New Orleans and just sent us the photo above. It's the "Big Ass" burger with herbed shoestring fries (which he describes as "amazing") from Elizabeth's in the Bywater section of New Orleans. He'll be posting about Elizabeth's in the near future.
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