A Burger Scholar Breaks Down Classic Regional Burger Styles | The Burger Show

how many

burger

s have you actually eaten? you think probably the last 15 years of hard research probably listed as 12,000

burger

s oh my gosh to some people burgers bring to mind the perfect proportions of an emoji keyboard for the familiarity of golden arches but fans like it for me , the beauty of the burger is in its differences. No one understands the nuances of burgers across the country quite like burger lord George Motz, whose badass book, Burger America, became the holy grail for burger fans. Today I'm headed to his house in Brooklyn for an accident. Of course in three

regional

styles

of burgers, so as I'm going through my burger journey, I'm starting to realize that burgers are kind of like barbecue, you know, like Carolina-style barbecue, there's Texas barbecue or Santa Maria Saal and many people don't know it. burgers are the same way, there are a lot of

regional

differences, I mean, there must be, you know, about a hundred different ones, I know of a hundred different varieties and final burger regions in America and each one is a little part of the story which is attached to the original american hamburger what is the history of the original hamburger in america?

In fact, you can go back as far as 13th century Russia, the Tatars and Mongols apparently would. they rode out and picked up pieces of lamb and put them under their saddles as they rode away it softened the meat and they took it out and ate it somehow raw lamb made its way across the baltic sea to germany and then became raw minced beef and was in Germany for the first time they actually started cooking the beef and serving it on a plate and calling it Hamburg steak because it was mostly served in Hamburg when people were immigrating and leaving the port of Hamburg where they would end up in New York City on the base He's been happy, but they'd once again find the Germans selling Hamburg steak. d at state fairs things were getting portable so someone said why don't we take hamburg steak and put it on bun and that was the start of the burger yes in america the rest is history is what i've learned is which is not really about ingredients, I mean, anyone could take the top and put it on a burger, but in America it seems like in these regional pockets it's about method, right?

This is how hamburgers are made. I'm going to make three regional burgers today ok I'm going to make them the Tennessee Fried Burger the Oklahoma Fried Onion Burger and the Connecticut Steamed Cheeseburger awesome let's do it before the days of flat tops or drains and you know catch up day in the pans cooked and the pan would eventually fill up with beef tallow they realize they don't have time to throw it away it's too hot to go on and they realize after a while that people like the taste of meat deep fried is there a place you can go in tennessee california full dry cleaners actually had the oil the same fat in the pan for over a hundred years wow endless japanese have that with their yakitori sauces like it's a continuous thing exactly that's how it is what comes from love marble surface so measured just because this is what dry cleaners use it i dont know what also because of 100 years of using relatively cheap marble um you can find this for a couple bucks this is a four dollar piece of marble pogi bone it's a Home Depot sample they squash it press it down look this gets nice and thin yeah so we try to gently scrape it off here, boom, there he goes, and he gets here, yeah, he knows they cooked real fast, but he's crying, he's developing a scab exactly. it's pretty done it's done so fast this is what they do so terribly like a Tennessee they take the cheese right and I gently stick it back into the fat somehow yeah yeah it's melted yeah we're done , that's it he's out of t him but look bad that would actually be a little bit of onion right on top of the pickles here this devil oil 375 yeah we're talking a little over an eighth of an inch thick cheese in there you do that part yeah yeah sliding in it back c'mon this part is driving me crazy yeah I'm not I'm not the best but that's pretty good it did it yeah that It's just a thing of beauty, go ahead man this is so good. this does not have ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, you can if you want, but a jew does not need it.

I mean the economy of Greece. The cheese, yes, it's almost like the cheese was poured into all the crevices of the meat. keep their traditions alive in Tennessee. I feel like we just cracked the DaVinci code on what's going to be the next level of American burger trend, which is frying everything, okay George, you took me to Tennessee, where we're going next, we're moving. to Oklahoma, so what's going on when we have all this heavy machinery here? we have the Oklahoma Fried Onion Burger it's in the center of what I like to call America's Burger Belt there are some of the best burgers in America ranging from Texas South Alwin North to Wisconsin Minnesota it's alright and of course that makes oklahoma the right buckle it makes a lot of sense because some of the best primary sourced burgers can be found in oklahoma unaffected by the trend of time nothing the trick to the fried onion burger from Oklahoma is thinly sliced ​​onion so here we are high so let me do this glasses have to go and I can't with that guy who is pasta safety first guys try this at home don't try to be a hero 'cause then it messes up the next 10 minutes of cooking, they can't see a thing.

I'm fine I tell people if you're juicing onion just go one step further and then you're almost done you can see you've done ribbons of onion a little bit of onion you'll get a tablespoon of meat put it in the pan a little. of salt here's the interesting part watch this done all the onion juice will actually produce you need a heavy spatula because this thing has to be squashed ok we actually take this and push it so like the time of your life here , that's what the onions are marrying. meat as i had to see cheese is marrying beef this happened because there was a time when people didn't have enough money to pay just to have a beef all the meat burns we had it from this side. for maybe a minute and a half, we always do cheese on flip, this is something I give myself, it's always all this, it's all, everything is turning into some kind of burger country, yeah, yeah, yeah, a bunch of burger magic happens right there again.

Going back to the story, it's a very important part of the United States, it's everything, it's ugly, it's beautiful, it's like Willem Dafoe's burgers are like anything with onions. slow slow mellowed or yes crispy fried whats up yes rob this is like a hybrid between the two the beauty of this burger is that the sum is greater than its parts oklahoma yes you know what they are doing this is the connecticut steamed cheeseburger TRUE? exists only within a seven mile radius of this geographic center of Connecticut, what do we do? It's a bit abnormal. 1930s Middletown, Connecticut, a place called Jack's lunch, so there's a reservoir at the bottom that's boiling water. inside it has shelves but the trays go in here slide out and cook the meat and cheese separately and then it comes out and puts in the bread thats serious thats serious business yeah theres a place in connecticut , this place has been around 1959 called ted's right so i put two get five this from the tents if you talk to them you're nice now it's natural he makes the meatballs it makes sense to me and we also have a very large block of Vermont cheddar cheese.

It's a very specific size that has to fit on this thing, so we're going to cut the blocks. The steaming pans on this tray will have meat on them, so we're going to pack the meat right in here because it's just not easy. Chuck, that's a very difficult way to make a hamburger. Obviously, you're packing a burger. It's weird, I think we're not actually making a pan of the burger, we're going to put it in the pan itself in the buttermilk, just yeah, oh, that hot steam here, the meat goes in, the cheese goes in, we close it, the kaiser rolls are hard a little tougher I needed something sturdy it will handle it like heat you'll see what comes out so yeah hot melted cheese and soft soft on a roll it would just collapse it would fall apart so a little more resistant, all good. kaiser roll leaves this structure yes to get a traditional steamed cheese eburger it's Mayo ketchup and mustard together they use green leaf lettuce you're adding a lot all of that because it's estimated exactly Oh normally this would take 15 minutes or so to come Christy , TRUE?

This spatula is perfect for this bad boy oh so I'm going to do this get out of here look it's not there it looks a little weird ok I'm used to my debauchery opening up and

show

ing me great me yeah we're cool here we go this is the other one is the crazy part here yeah this is magic here magic yeah so you wanna make sure oh yeah baby yeah oh yeah that's a steamed cheeseburger that's the craziest thing you've ever seen that's why we changed the bun 'cause you're going to need that stability man look at that yeah okay try oh my god oh no cheese dough it's like a cheese ball dough I buy some it's really delicious it's very meaty that's what I like about a really berry flavor of the meat like there's like pure beef shines through it No awesome burger people today.

I think those who are making burgers think that you have to add a lot of things to the burger, you know? avocados and fried oysters with foie gras you don't need those things you know you ordered from these people when you go to the

classic

places in America, why not add more things? man you know I think as a burger aficionado Epirus I like the oklahoma onion burger that was awesome man yeah I think that's one of those burgers you know needs to come out of oklahoma this is awesome , you have definitely taken me to three places I never knew existed it was my pleasure thanks for coming House Hospice you can't tell me but that's very appropriate don't tell me