Burgers at my house are always an occasion. We only make them a couple of times a year. The impetus this week was that I found some lovely looking whole wheat buns at the Bread Farm in Edison. (It's really hard to find fresh, whole wheat buns big enough for a burger.)
A couple of friends of mine started a business a few years ago based on selling sustainable burgers. They quickly found themselves in a tricky situation: either use inferior ingredients, or charge a lot more than folks are used to paying for a burger. The business didn't work out.
Watching their travails I came to the conclusion that the term "sustainable burger' is an oxymoron. A burger is, in its essence, a cheap everyday food whose primary ingredient is meat. No matter how good the meat you use, it's not sustainable to use it as the primary ingredient in an everyday food. According to Mark Bittman's Food Matters, the average person on the planet eats about 3 ounces of meat a day while the average American eats about 8 ounces. There is more meat in even a small hamburger than the average person on the planet eats in a day.
On those occasional occasions when we make burgers at my house, we usually spend more than we do on almost any other meal. Every detail needs to be just so, from the lettuce, to the pickles, to the onions, to the mustard. It keeps it special. It should be special.
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