The Burger Town Manifesto

In the beginning was the hamburger, and it was good. In its simplest form, it consists of a disc of ground beef called a patty comfortably placed between a halved roll of bread called the bun. The patty and bun are required for the formation of the hamburger. The addition of cheese transforms the combination into a cheeseburger. The hamburger and cheeseburger are fundamentally different as the latter intermingles cheese and meat. Additional ingredients can be added such as onion, tomato, pickle, fried egg, bacon, and lettuce--all glued together with a paste of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, or barbecue sauce.

These ingredients do not fundamentally change the cheeseburger. A woman who has her burger dragged through the garden is still eating the same burger as the woman with only mustard and ketchup on hers. At its core, the cheeseburger remains a simple combination of meat and bread and cheese but the types of meat and bread are what set the hamburger apart from a boring ham sandwich. French fries accompany the burger as an iconic side, and while the burger is still a burger without French fries, it looks happier with deep fried potato comrades.

Burgers are universally available. One can purchase a burger anywhere from Fast Food corporate giants McDonald's and Burger King to smaller regional chains like the West's In-n-Out Burger and the Midwest-based White Castle. Independent establishments, or Mom and Pop places, serve burgers of substantial quality for a slightly higher premium compared to the franchised restaurants whose meat and bread come prepared by a factory. Fancy or gourmet restaurants who serve sophisticated clientele serve their own burgers for their pickier guests. If none of that satisfies the hunger, one can simply buy their own meat and prepare it to their preference.

I argue there is a hierarchy to the burger and it is based on the simplicity of the burger itself and its ease of preparation. At the top stands the independent, the Mom and Pop place whose influence stretches no further than its city limits or even its own parking lot. These establishments eschew the online or televised advertising for the oldest form of media: word of mouth. Some places struggle, and worse so, others become complacent. But rarely does the quality of the burger itself suffer. These burgers are handcrafted by a worker of the restaurant or the meat market from which the meat is ordered. Though they make many, they are not mass produced. There is no opportunity for additives or preservatives to be injected into the burger. The burger is barely tampered with from cow to Styrofoam container.

Just below the top sits the Fast Food restaurants. The quality of their burgers will never exceed those of the top tier, but their philosophy keeps them above the bottom. Speed and cheapness are the hammer and sickle of Fast Food. They are cousins to many of the Mom and Pop joints in the sense that the hamburgers are to be made as quickly as safely possible and sold as cheaply as economically viable. While the quality of the product may differ significantly, most Fast Food restaurants have no illusions about what their product is. In their advertisements, they may apply makeup on a burger to make it more aesthetically pleasing, but they know that once the baited customer enters t heir store after witnessing a near-pornographic hamburger commercial, they're not going to complain that their Hefty Burger w/ Bacon doesn't look exactly as it did on TV. Both the restaurant and the customer have identical expectations, even if they are low.

At the bottom of the hierarchy sits the fancy restaurant with their Gourmet burger. Here sit the liars, the charlatans, the snake burger salesmen who believe they can justify charging at least $15 for a burger because everything else on the menu costs at least $20. They follow the formula to a T: meat and bread. They also mutate it.

The bun is not a standard hamburger bun but an artisanal brioche roll baked in our adobe kiln by a baker trained in Baguette, France. The meat is a Kobe-style beef that comes from free range cows who watch French New Wave films as they enter the slaughterhouse. The lettuce and tomato come from our rooftop garden where we use gutter water for irrigation but use no harmful pesticides. The cheddar cheese comes from a small dairy farm in northern Wisconsin where there is no electricity or 4G. Price: $18.

Buzzwords blind the burger buyer to the truth that, while mathematically what they eat is a burger, it is a burger that has lost its innocence and been sullied through hipster-Frankenstein super science. The price elevates the burger to bourgeoisie heights. It may taste good, but look at where you are, look at the square plate on which your burger was delivered. Were you even able to get French fries as a side? I should be clear: the Gourmet burger may actually be tasty. I've had them before. I will continue to get them. But the pedestals on which they set themselves are so high that any fall is disastrous. The Gourmet burger cooks are deluded, and the idea of a Gourmet burger in itself is pretentious.

There exists an ideal hamburger. I believe it has been made but I have no way of knowing if I've had it yet. It might not even sit on the top tier among the Mom and Pop restaurants. It could even be among the Gourmets. It falls under the following criteria:

• The burger must be inexpensive. I do not outright say "cheap," but it cannot cost an exorbitant amount.
• The burger cannot take long to cook. This will differ depending on how busy the establishment is and whether the hamburger is the restaurants meat and potatoes.
• The burger must be obvious. On the menu, the burger must be advertised in a clear and concise manner. There is no room for buzzwords. And most importantly:
• The burger must stand on its own. Without topping, without condiment, the burger will impress at its basic formula of meat, bread, and cheese--or even just meat and bread.

It is not enough that the ideal burger should exist. It should be a guideline for burger cooks everywhere to follow. In an ideal burger world, the standard is perfection; anything less is trash.