Perhaps reflective of the state of intellectual discourse nowadays that when US President Donald Trump decided to eat a burger in Japan, the social media community went nuts. Or perhaps its just progressives, since they’re in a constant state of nuttiness anyway. For a group claiming to be for individual freedom, they seem hell-bent on dictating whatever it is people should do, including what to eat for lunch and where.
In any event, reading about the Trump burger thing just made me hungry for a burger.
Hamburgers are essentially just ground beef put between slices of buns. The idea of grinding beef was said to come from the Mongols. Or the Russians. Perhaps its original form is what we see now as the steak tartare. James Bond had it upon being proffered by Kerim in Istanbul:
“The second course came, and with it a bottle of Kavaklidere, a rich coarse burgundy like any other Balkan wine. The Kebab was good and tasted of smoked bacon fat and onions. Kerim ate a kind of Steak Tartare — a large flat hamburger of finely minced raw meat laced with peppers and chives and bound together with yolk of egg. He made Bond try a forkful. It was delicious. Bond said so. ‘You ought to eat it every day,’ said Kerim earnestly. ‘It is good for those who wish to make much love.’” (From Russia with Love)
The idea of shaping ground beef into round patties apparently came from the Germans. As Adam Kuban relates, “As global trade picked up, seafarers brought this idea back to the port city of Hamburg, Germany, where the Deutschvolk decided to mold it into a steak shape and add heat to the equation, making something that, outside of Hamburg, was referred to as ‘Hamburg steak.’”
But it was when it came to America (well, naturally) that the hamburger came to be. Again Kuban: “There are currently three major claims staked on the confusing and contradictory map of American hamburger history. Each has its adherents and detractors.” They are: Louis’s Lunch (New Haven, Connecticut), “Hamburger Charlie” (Seymour, Wisconsin), and Menches Brothers (Hamburg, New York). The time frames involved here range from 1885 to 1900.
Somewhere along the way, the hamburger would get a boost.
In the same stroke of genius when someone decided to combine chocolate with milk and sugar (likely in the 1520s in Spain), somebody had the brilliant idea of putting cheese in the hamburger, then partnering it with french fries and soda. And thus: the modern burger.
As for condiments, Bruce Willis (Whole Nine Yards) had this to say: “Every red-blooded American knows that the only condiment that you are ever supposed to put on a hamburger is ketchup! Or maybe some of that special sauce you like so much here in Canada; which I think has a little bit of mayonnaise in it too! But I swear to God when they start slapping that mayonnaise on there I could kill somebody.”
So the burger became big in the US. And with the coming of the Second World War, then the Cold War, the hamburger became the American’s best export (along with chocolate, Hollywood, and rock and roll). But with the globalization of the burger came the inevitable international conflicts:
“Vincent: And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?
Vincent: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn’t know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules: Then what do they call it?
Vincent: They call it a Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent: Well, a Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.
Jules: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent: I dunno, I didn’t go into Burger King. But, you know what they put on French fries in Holland instead of ketchup?
Jules: What?
Vincent: Mayonnaise.
Jules: God damn!” (Pulp Fiction)
But never mind Messieurs Willis and Tarantino, I prefer mayonnaise, Tabasco, and mustard. Without ketchup. My favorite Filipino fast-food version would be Tropical Hut’s cheeseburger. If really hungry, the double double burger. Jollibee’s is fine too but with pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage Justine Trudeau, now I don’t know. Razon’s is great and reminds me of Manila burgers of old.
As for Trump’s Tokyo burger, the Daily Mail reports it was from popular Tokyo chain Munch’s Burger Shack: “a $10 Colby Jack cheeseburger — well done, Trump’s seeming preferred level of doneness, with lettuce and tomato — and fries for the president, which was accompanied by a tall glass of soda and bottles of Heinz ketchup and mustard. Trump deemed the cheeseburger to be ‘very good.’”
And the Japanese, bless them, came in droves to Munch’s Burger Shack a few hours later. So much for the progressive social media backlash.
Jemy Gatdula is a Senior Fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.
Twitter @jemygatdula
