You're not a stepchild, too, are you? :D:D

Doug

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Far be it for me to preach safety, but eating ANY sort of ground meat cooked to less than medium well is a recipe for a ticket to the hospital with severe food poisoning. Not a question of if it will happen but when.
Reason: Steaks are "sealed" internally with bacteria only on the surface and can safely be eaten rare but burgers are NOT with bacteria permeating thru-and thru. VERY important to cook thouroughly no matter if you grind your own or store-buy Ground Sirloin, Round, Chuck or GAG-hamburger.

Someone told me they have Whataburger in Alabama now.


Bill

Speak of the devil. Saw this posted on Facebook today, from Shively, KY (Louisville area) near my neck of the woods.



Notice the "drive-up" style of architecture. By this time, curb service was going out of vogue, but the parking lot layout was still reminiscent of it. In some ways, it reminds me of Arnold's on Happy Days. (It also reminds me of lots of other fast-food joints from the 60's.)

Doug

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When they finally got to Texas with Steak-n-Shake, they were one half the thickness, four times the price and my teeth were all gone.

But it really is a good burger. Kinda diminutive, but quite tasty :)

Doug

.

Actually, I prefer a thinner patty. Those great big thick monsters just don't cook right, and as GH pointed out, rare ground beef is inviting disaster. So with a thick burger, it's usually raw inside and over cooed outside. Some of the best burgers i've ever had were super thin patties smashed flat on a griddle. They just taste better.

As for toppings, the best burger I ever ate was at a local drive in here in my home town, and it was a "Pizza Burger" - hamburger patty cooked through then mozzarella cheese melted on top and dressed with pizza sauce. Mmmm good!

I saw this. Always loved the Burger Chef architecture. It almost made up for the fact that the food tasted like compressed dung. I think they were the first ones to come up with the "works bar", which tells you a lot. Even they knew the taste needed to be disguised. :D

Yes, it's true. As I'm typing this, there's a Whataburger across the road from my hotel here in Birmingham, AL.

BURGER CHEF was the BEST and the furthest possible thing from compressed dung.

Bill must have been eating at the ONE lousy Burger Chef that EVER existed.
Besides, when was the last time you ate a compressed dung burger to compare it to ? Hmm ? Was the DUNG flame broiled or RAW with a nice STINK goin' on ?
Wash it down with a glass of SEWER WATER too ?

I just got a whiff of your breath and assumed it was flame broiled dung you'd been eating. My mistake. :rolleyes:
All of our Burger Chefs around here were horrible. I BEGGED my parents not to take me there. Even McDonald's was a step up.

Around here, Burger Chef wasn't bad, but the best fast food burger of my youth came from Sandy's. After Hardee's bought 'em out, they just weren't as good. The main reason I liked Burger Chef was because of the works bar - I can't stand onions on my burger, nor those little round green things that are allegedly pickles!

Greg

IMHO, there's only one proper perch for dill pickle slices:

On a Chick-Fil-A samich! :)

White Castle.

Except for the Jalapeno Double Cheese WITHOUT Onions, White Castle is disgusting food suited ONLY for an ending to a full-day/night long drunken binge.

McDonalds is even WORSE, and is not fit to be part of a PUNITIVE PRISON FOOD SERVICE PROGRUM.

Chew on THIS !

You and me, baby. :cool:

:eek: Wow. That's pretty gruesome. A chicken samich? :confused:

You don't have Chick-Fil-A in KY?

There was this place on New Circle Road, a few miles north of the UK campus in Lexington. The guys at the frat house always talked about it as the restaurant of last resort. And, as I recall, it was a Chick-Fil-A. That said, from what I've seen of every other Chick-Fil-A, they're pretty much top notch fast food, so I've never understood what was wrong with that one store.

Doug

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Yeah, but I generally get one of the wraps. Chicken and pickles doesn't sound very inviting. Chick-Fil-A is one of the places we always look to stop at on vacation. They're generally pretty well run, quick, and liked by everyone in the car. Other than Sonic, that's a rarity in this family.

If we're thinking of the same place, it might have been a local, non-franchise store. Same name, but other than that, no relation.

GH,

You have a way with words...I have tears running down my cheeks.

Home grilled is best. I like the 75-25 or leaner. Mustard, sliced onion
and tomato. If we make cheese burgers it's Swiss or American (if
American, its first ingredient is milk, not that no melting oil based plastic
crap!)

See my "Hot Dogs" reply for chips and pickles

Locally, Whataburger is pretty good, Dairy Queen likewise. When last in Arlington
Texas, we went to the In-N-Out. Was great, especially the fries.
My friend had previously managed to get some type of menu - he ordered his fries "animal style" IIRC.
They were covered in Thousand Island dressing, not my cup of tea.

Bob
p.s. I dislike charcoal starter fluid and especially hate the pre-treated charcoal.
A chimney is the way to go; crumple a sheet or two of newspaper, stuff it in the
bottom, add charcoal & light the paper. Coals are ready to go in roughly half an hour.

If you grind your own burgers you can eat it as rare as you like. Straight from the grinder to the grill. No samonilla or contamination. I still perfer mine medium rare. :D With mayo and fresh tomato. MMMMMM!!!! Oh and a good BBQ potato chip. Oh and a nice crunchy dill slice. . Now I am hungry LOL.

Hi Craig,

I'm originally from Brewton, ~ 90 miles east of Mobile. We had a local called Oak's.
Their burgers were plain Jane; bun, patty, mustard, pickles. My dad would go get a
sack full on saturdays. I can almost smell and taste them 37 years later!

Bob

Don't care much for Chick-Fil-A... they're just TOO DARN HIGH for what you get! Heck I can get a chicken sandwich for a buck at McDookey's or Jack-in-the Box for a buck... NO WAY am I paying like $6 for a chicken sandwich combo at Chick Fil A that's the SAME DINKY SIZE SANDWICH! Those tiny little chick-filla things should sell for like a buck like at White Castle or McDookey's...

It's about like that goofy Captain D's... anything worth eating is like $10 bucks with the ice tea... heck for a couple bucks more you can have lunch at Red Lobster which is MUCH better tasting seafood...

LateR! OL JR :)

Grinding your own burger does NOTHING to make it safe to eat any less than medium-well.
You are grinding the SURFACE bacteria of the solid 'starting' meat into ALL of the surface area of the ground meat. That bacteria WILL survive and is NOT GOOD. May not catch up with you for a long time, but it WILL unless one stops eating IMPROPERLY cooked burger. ANY burger less than medium-well done IS improperly cooked.

But any burger that is cooked medium-well done is not worth eating.

Steak Tartare, anyone?

I'll eat a burger anywhere from med rare to well done. Last one I grilled was pretty rare, in fact. Still mooing. My preference is a juicy pink in the middle (med). I'm not the greatest griller, though I should be because I do it often enough and totally enjoy the process.

As to all the germs and bacteria, I subscribe to the George Carlin philosophy:

Where did this sudden fear of germs come from in this country? Have you noticed this? The media constantly running stories about all the latest infections? Salmonella, E-coli, hanta virus, bird flu, and Americans will panic easily so everybody's running around scrubbing this and spraying that and overcooking their food and repeatedly washing their hands, trying to avoid all contact with germs. It's ridiculous and it goes to ridiculous lengths.

In prisons, before they give you lethal injection, they swab your arm with ALCOHOL. Wouldn't want some guy to go to hell AND be sick.Fear of germs, why these f----n' p----ies. You can't even get a decent hamburger anymore they cook the sh-t out of everything now 'cause everyone's afraid of FOOD POISONING! Hey, wheres you sense of adventure? Take a f----n' chance will you? Hey you know how many people die of food poisoning in this country? Nine thousand, thats all, its a minor risk.

Take a f----n' chance bunch of god**** p----ies.Besides, what d'ya think you have an immune system for? It's for killing germs! But it needs practice, it needs germs to practice on. So if you kill all the germs around you, and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you're not gonna be prepared. And never mind ordinary germs, what are you gonna do when some super virus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid sh-t?! I'll tell you what your gonna do ... you're gonna get sick. You're gonna die and your gonna deserve it because you're f------g weak and you got a f----in' weak immune system!

Let me tell you a true story about immunization ok. When I was a little boy in New York city in the nineteen-forties, we swam in the Hudson river. And it was filled with raw sewage! OK? We swam in raw sewage, you know, to cool off. And at that time the big fear was polio. Thousands of kids died from polio every year. But you know something? In my neighborhood no one ever got polio. No one! EVER! You know why? Cause WE SWAM IN RAW SEWAGE! It strengthened our immune system, the polio never had a prayer. We were tempered in raw sh-t!

So personally I never take any precautions against germs. I don't shy away from people who sneeze and cough. I don't wipe off the telephone, I don't cover the toilet seat, and if I drop food on the floor I pick it up and eat it!Even if I'm at side walk cafe! IN CALCUTTA! THE POOR SECTION! ON NEW YEARS MORNING DURING A SOCCER RIOT! And you know something? In spite of all the so called "risky behavior ".... I never get infections. I don't get em. I don't get colds, I don't get flu, I don't get headaches, I don't get upset stomach, And you know why? Cause I got a good strong immune system! And it gets a lot of practice!

My immune system is equipped with the biological equivalent of fully automatic military assault rifles, with night vision and laser scopes. And we have recently acquired phosphorous grenades, cluster bombs and anti personnel fragmentation mines.

So, when my white blood cells are on patrol reconnoitering my blood stream seeking out strangers and other undesirables, and if they see any, ANY, suspicious looking germs of any kind, THEY DON'T. F--K. AROUND. They whip out the weapons, they wax the motherf-----r and deposit the unlucky fellow directly into my colon! Into my colon. There's no nonsense! There's no miranda warning, there's none of that three strikes and your out bullsh-t. First defense, BAM! Into the colon you go!

-- George Carlin

Tonight it's going to be a mix of short rib and chuck.

Do you suppose that eating undercooked hamburgers is why Pompus Pete is so ****ed cranky?

NO burger or ANY OTHER red meat is worth eating if cooked LESS than medium-well as it will TASTE LIKE CRAP !!!!
Medium qualifies as BARELY cooked. Medium Rare and Rare are just different states of RAW !!!

I will admit though that the Carlin rant is hilarious-my favorite comedian by far.
His best line was- "I'm IN shape; ROUND is a shape !!"

I think 'pompous pete' is so dammed kranky due to eating all that 'baloney filled with gunpowder' the liberal media constantly spews upon him. It's toxic, but he won't come to grips with that.

Used to eat what was called a 'Cannibal Sandwich'. Raw beef (ground round) on caraway rye, salt and pepper, and a big chunk of raw onion. Mmmm mmm.

Nobody got sick. I think Carlin was right.

My maternal Grandfather used to eat those rank-a$$ 'cannibal sandwiches' too...raw burger, raw onion, and rye bread.
He sometimes added limburger to them too....B.O. bacteria cheese is just the ticket for that already hideous mess.
Gee, wonder why all the grandkids avoided him ?
Couldn't have had ANYTHING to do with the bigg-tyme STINK !
TOTAL DISGUSTING HIDEOUS WASTE of good ground beef.
A DAWG TURD would be a more wholesome snack.

Depends on where you're getting your meat...

If you're getting it at the local "bargain barn" (IE Walmart, large chain grocery store, etc) then yeah you're probably right.

If you're getting PROPERLY butchered meat from a local source, then your worries are almost nil...

Being a farmer, I've attended some programs that would curl your hair, let alone the 'average consumer'. For instance, a few years back I went to a program at a farm show convention about growing "white" grain sorghums. Most sorghum is red sorghum; white sorghums have some unique qualities that make it more desirable for food and feed, and it usually sells for a premium (but requires sequestration from other red sorghums in handling and storage, making it more difficult to deal with from that angle). For instance, red sorghum, when ground into flour, contains small colored flecks of the red pericarp surrounding the individual kernels of grain. White sorghum, having a white pericarp, does not. Sorghum, unlike wheat, contains no gluten, making it ideal for gluten allergy sufferers, and can be used to make excellent baked goods. The interesting part was, that when feeding broiler chickens, sorghum, which is cheaper than corn, is the preferred grain feed for fattening the birds during the grow-out phase. In the last several days before slaughter, the chicken growers have to switch to more expensive corn... the reason?? Corn has a yellowish pericarp around the seed, that when ingested by the chicken, turns clear/whitish. Sorghum, having a red pericarp and glumes (small "leaves' surrounding the seed that often are threshed with it and end up in the feed) turns BLACK in the chicken's digestive tract. When the chicken is butchered, the line moves SO fast that on the average an unskilled worker is given about ten to fifteen seconds to gut a chicken as it passes by. SO, in his haste, he usually perforates the guts and slings manure all over the bird as he guts the chicken. If the chicken ate sorghum as it's last meal, this manure will have black glumes in it which will be spread all over the bird and the USDA inspector will mark it 'fecal contamination' and the bird will have to be rejected. If the chicken ate CORN for it's last meal, the manure slung all over it will be WHITE or CLEAR, and against the white skin of the butchered chicken, will not be visible to the USDA inspector, and therefore the chicken will PASS the inspection... With WHITE SORGHUM, the chicken growers can feed something cheaper than corn that STILL will show only whitish flecks of manure on the bird carcass from sloppy slaughtering practices, and therefore still pass inspection, which makes the company more money...

Beef slaughter practices in the big "megacompany" slaughterhouses are no better... unskilled workers working long shifts are given only moments to gut animals, usually eviscerating the intestines and spilling the contents all over the meat carcass. Skinning practices are just as bad-- they just flat out rush too much! The companies are CONSTANTLY looking for higher profits, and pushing the lines faster and faster to up production from the same workforce and hours of operation... so the practices have gotten sloppier and sloppier over time. Throw in the fact that super-sized slaughterhouses and hamburger plants how produce meat for several states or entire regions of the country, along with antibiotic resistant bacteria caused by feeding low-levels of antibiotics to livestock to increase feed conversion (more profits) and sloppy slaughtering procedures end up contaminating the meat with massive amounts of animal effluent and bacteria. In fact, I saw a program awhile back where companies have started spraying their meat carcasses with antimicrobial disinfectants after slaughter, because it's cheaper to do that (ordering chemical disinfectants in bulk) than to slow the lines down, hire more workers, and actually do the job correctly to prevent fecal contamination of the meat in the first place...

Unchained capitalism at work...

lateR! OL JR :)

Ground up some ox-tail, chuck and very lean round last night and did 'em on the grill. Very loosely formed into about five ounce patties with some kosher salt and fresh ground pepper just before throwing them on the fire. Five minutes a side and they were beautifully charred and a lovely solid pink on the inside. A handful of shredded cheddar and Montery Jack cheese melted on each one with some wafer sliced onion on a grilled sesame seed bun. Deluxe and delightful. The best I've ever made. And I've made a lot.

It seems the fresh gound meat and "loose" patties make a heck of a difference. Pretty much a quantum leap, as it were; in 'burger making. To me at any rate. I was unaware of the "loose" part until recently—now I'm sold. I used to pat and shape my 'burgers to a fair-thee-well before.

I should have thought to take a photo or two. Maybe next time.

Found these fairly recent photos. The only times I've ever photographed my food. Regular cheeseburger and bacon cheeseburger with BBQ sauce slathered on the meat just before the cheese went on. Yum! Pretty much my standard burgers. Grilled potato roll, mustard (of whatever type I feel like at the time), diced onions, meat and 'Merican cheese, ketchup (maybe), thick sliced tomato, salt and pepper, some kind of lettuce and mayo. Only thing that I can think of that's as good or better is a good 'ol Eastern Shore crab cake. Though, of course, girlie-girl does make the best soft-shell crab sandwich I've ever had. I'll have to get a photo of one of those—GH'll love it.

On one of the science shows a while back they went into a modern meat packing plant. They interviewed a manager there who explained very carefully that out of all the meat processed at the plant, the ground beef was the most potentially dangerous. He said surface contamination of a cut of meat was bad enough, but when you grind it the contamination is pushed into the bulk of the product and can contaminate literally thousands of pounds of meat. He said they were "very" careful with all meat, but especially careful with ground beef.

Tommy's burgers are pretty tasty and comparatively cheap compared to most other burger chain fare. I still haven't figured out why I feel compelled to eat a bunch of those peppers each time I eat there...
http://www.originaltommys.com/


... and on the topic of amount of cooking of meat... I'm not squeamish about eating sashimi, but for some odd reason the thought of torisashi, basashi, or gyusashi makes me sequeamish.

http://videosift.com/video/Troy-McC...ars-in-MEAT-YOU

I remember back in school, when the assigned book was Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle ), there was an optional field trip to the local meat packing plant. Most of the farm kids (typically the ones where they grew up around livestock) were unaffected, while the "city kids" generally swore off eating meat for a while. As a "black box" (i.e. something where you don't see the inner workings), a meat packing plant isn't so disturbing to most folks --- animals go in on one side, and out the other end packages of meat come out.