Nothing beats a hamburger to eat.
Most cowboys contend a beef steak is the best eating there is. We’ve eaten steaks at what are considered the best eating establishments in 19 states, as well as a wide variety of “home-cooked” and barbecued steaks, and nothing compares to a plain ole hamburger. Now really we’re talking about a beef burger, but to us that’s always been a hamburger.
We never really understood how come our favorite meat had the prefix of “ham,” because it never saw a hog. Then a reader told us the name came from Hamburg, Germany; that town knew good food and named it after itself. Fresh hamburger was ground daily at our family grocery store, and we were often called upon to do the job.
Ingredients make the burger, so to speak, and most of it was scraps, literally. Steaks, roasts, ribs, whatever, were boned out, and the trimmings were ground up. Several large pans of hamburger were made and sold daily. To meet that demand, clods of red meat (trimmed from big bulls’ hind quarters) were purchased wholesale, and made into burger.
Excess tallow or suet (fat) from beef sides was portioned in at a 30-70 ratio. We also ground a few pounds of lean beef, which didn’t have any fat added in, and it sold at a
higher price. Hamburger was 49 cents per pound regularly, and two pounds for 89 cents, on special. The all-lean kind was 69 cents a pound. Of course, that was four decades ago.
Now, there’s a wide difference in hamburgers, too. Not all of them meet satisfactory criteria to beat sirloins, t-bones, ribeyes, etc., in the “best meat to eat contest.” Along with the many hamburgers from different home kitchens, most often when we “eat out,” now and for the past nearly six decades, we’ve ordered a hamburger and French fries.
So, we’ve become a true connoisseur of hamburgers. We’ve eaten literally thousands in our lifetime, maybe as many as 20,000. Some days we’ll eat two or three. Of all the home-cooked, cafe and fast-food chain hamburgers we’ve had in our lifetime, we just had “the best ever.” If this sounds like a commercial, so let it be.
We had two“legendary sliders” at Salina’s Cozy Inn. It wasn’t our seat at the six-stool counter dating back to 1922, nor the tantalizing smell from the grill where we watched them fried, nor the buck apiece cost for the 1/16 pound onion-smothered meat in a fresh, dozen-to-a-bag bun, but it was the unique and delicious hamburgers themselves.
Without question, those were the best hamburgers we’ve ever eaten. Lots of folks agree with that too, because the woman cooking them said she’d sure sell 1,300 that day. Somebody from Wichitawent way out of his road to come in and have a dinner of five, and a soldier had an order for twenty-two in a brown bag as he stepped out the front door.
Thankfully, the promise in Deuteronomy 11:15: “I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.” Importance was stressed in Genesis 27:4: And make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat.” Pleasure is noted in Acts 2:46: “They did eattheir meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”
+++ALLELUIA+++