George Motz's Hamburger America

Summary

Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

Episode: George Motz’s Hamburger America

Date: April 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this mouthwatering episode, Dave Arnold welcomes George Motz, the renowned burger historian, restaurateur, and author of Hamburger America. The conversation dives deep into Motz’s new (expanded) edition of the landmark burger book and his restaurant, Hamburger America. They explore regional burger variations, preservation of burger history, intriguing preparation methods, and the obsessive quest for authenticity. The crew also shares their recent food exploits before Motz arrives, setting a relaxed, irreverent tone typical for Cooking Issues.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Intro & Panel Banter (00:11–18:27)

• Pre-guest banter:
  The regulars (Dave, Joe, John, Quinn, Nastasia, Jackie) chat about everything from opera shoe etiquette to Easter and Passover meals, matzo ball techniques, and the eternal quest for optimal ham leftovers.
• Techniques discussed:
  • The value of reheating leftover Easter ham with its gelatinous fat for crisping (04:41)
  • Pressure cooker use for sauces and judicious use of water (08:07)
  • Lightening matzo balls with baking powder vs. pure matzo meal (16:30)
  • Iranian-style charoset with a litany of dried fruit and nuts (17:12)
• Memorable Moment:
  “Nobody wants your toothpaste pie.” —Miley, as told by Dave (13:11), about a failed mint-lime pie that her single comment destroyed for everyone else.

2. Listener Q&A: Flour Fineness and Meat Cooking Techniques (18:28–25:10)

• Tips for Hazelnut Flour:
  Dave suggests re-blending coarse nut flour with cocoa powder, sugar, or salt to achieve a finer texture—especially before adding to dough (18:28).
• Meat Doneness and Crust:
  Dave advocates the "on-off" high-heat grill method (21:58):
  “You don’t need to think about the temperature of the grill... the answer is, it’s hot.” —Dave
  Most people, he says, actually prefer a textural transition between crust and interior.

3. George Motz Arrives: Hamburger America Deep Dive (25:11–end)

3.1. Book Talk and Authenticity (25:11–29:44)

• New edition:
  Hamburger America has been greatly expanded—now “almost 500 pages... 159,000 words dedicated... to the hamburger.” (25:26, Motz)
• Preserving lost classics:
  Retired recipes now reside in Motz’s other book, The Great American Burger Cookbook (30:00)
• Burger road wisdom:
  Motz insists on experiencing restaurants as a regular, not VIP, to ensure authenticity—“I want the treatment that everyone else gets... It’s a complete disservice if I’m given... the special bun we have in the back for VIPs.” (28:32, Motz)

3.2. Hamburger America Restaurant: Methods, Sourcing, Living History (29:44–43:03)

• Open kitchen ethos:
  Motz’s restaurant is all about transparency—guests can watch every burger be made. There are no secrets or VIP treatments (32:32).
• Monthly historic burger recreations:
  Motz invites original creators or their descendants into the restaurant, sourcing exact components (like po’ boy bread for Camellia Grill) and even replicating serving rituals, to trigger “sense memory” for fans (35:20).
  “Details are very important for us... we want to make sure that we’re doing it correctly.” (36:42, Motz)
• Preservation challenges:
  Some historic burgers can't be recreated due to ingredient secrecy or sourcing difficulties (36:42).
• Griddle philosophy:
  Motz prefers old-fashioned carbon steel griddles, not chrome (33:33), and recommends large cast iron pans for home cooks.

3.3. Burger History and Regional Differences (43:03–end)

• Why are some states missing from the book?
  “To be in the book, you have to have a burger on the menu for over 20 years... some places just don’t care [about publicity].” (45:45)
• Burger diversity:
  There are burgers steamed, fried, deep fried, smashed, hand-formed, machine-pattied—the method matters less to Motz than provenance and tradition (38:56).
• Frozen beef is sacrilege:
  “Hates freezing. Like it’s... terrible for the beef.” (39:24)
• Best beef:
  Only cow (no alternative meats) makes Motz’s burger cut (40:19).
• Butcher shop burgers:
  Some of the best burgers come from old-school butchers who became burger shops, blending retail and sandwich counter (41:18).

3.4. Methodological Oddities and Standouts

• Sourcing and equipment quirks:
  • Discussed impact of flat-top pitch, griddle seasoning (62:24), and how some places flour burgers before griddling (Triple X in Indiana, 61:34)
• Bread content and extenders:
  • The “Snappy Lunch” burger in North Carolina uses leftover biscuits in the patty, giving it a crab cake–like texture (58:13)
  • Slug burgers (originally beef and bread, often now pork and soy flour, mostly fried), still beloved for a “perfect ratio of beef to bread.” (60:44)
• Sauce innovations:
  • Unique regional sauces, such as the Gunter Gebel Williams steak sauce from Florida—onions, scotch, soy, brown sugar, mustard, Worcestershire (49:37)
• Burger engineering:
  • Placement of lettuce/tomato (between patties, beneath patty) varies regionally, usually for practical speed of assembly over flavor (54:01)

3.5. Standout Burger Categories

• Stunt Burgers:
  • Shady Glen’s cheese wing burger (“like a strange cheese crown”) classed as a “stunt burger”—a burger made for spectacle, not just taste (50:01)
• Dipped and marinated burgers:
  • Fat Moe’s in Nashville marinates the cooked burger in a complex Persian-spiced jus for major flavor, but most places avoid extended acid/salt marinating (63:33)
  • Several shops dip whole, assembled burgers in au jus before serving (63:33)
• Wet vs. dry flat tops:
  • “Wet” (grease-filled) griddles are traditional, add flavor, but are tricky and hazardous. Moves toward safety prompted the shift to dry, sloped griddles (59:23)
• Big, shareable buns:
  • Some “stunt” burgers designed to be sliced and shared—a 7" bun in a pie tin in Oklahoma is served quartered (52:32)

3.6. Deeper Burger Debates

• Double burger: two patties vs. double meat:
  Some regions/shops simply double the meatball and smash it; others stack two patties. The double patty as we know it may have been invented by Bob’s Big Boy (55:25)
• Eggs on burgers:
  Not a classic American tradition, but appears in select regional recipes. Motz will feature a scrambled egg–topped burger as a guest special (56:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the obsession with onions:
  “If you do not like onions... this book is so replete with onions, I can almost smell onions reading the book.” —Dave (31:27)
• Motz on authenticity:
  “I want the treatment that everyone else gets... I don’t want that... for VIPs. I don’t want that.” (28:32)
• On freezing beef:
  “Scientifically, does terrible things to the beef, you know.” —Motz (39:24)
• On the “cheese wings” burger:
  “It’s like a strange cheese crown.” —Motz, on Shady Glen’s signature burger (50:28)
• On ‘stunt’ burgers:
  “Stunt should be used loosely... today’s stunt burgers are much different than the stunt burgers of history.” —Motz (52:40)
• The mini vs. slider distinction:
  “If the first thing you say is, ‘That’s so cute,’ you know it's not gonna taste good.” —Motz (57:25)
• Motz on burger science:
  “There are so many different methods... steamed, fried, deep fried, smashed flat... if the burger is great, I’m there, you know?” (38:56)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:11–18:27: Panel banter & week-in-review food stories
• 18:28–25:10: Listener Q&As: flour sifting, grilling methods
• 25:11: George Motz arrives, book & restaurant discussion starts
• 30:00: Where do lost burger recipes go? (The cookbook)
• 32:27: Hamburger America’s open kitchen ethos
• 35:20: Living burger history—recreating lost classics
• 39:24: The freezing beef rant
• 45:25: Why some states have no entries in the book
• 50:01: Cheese wings at Shady Glen (stunt burger discussion)
• 54:01: Veg placement/engineering on burgers
• 58:05: Biscuits in the burger (Snappy Lunch)
• 61:34: Flour-breaded burgers on the griddle (Triple X, Indiana)
• 63:33: Marinated/dipped burgers
• 65:18: Loose meat sandwiches—teaser for next time

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Tone and Style

Irreverent, digressive, and thick with food nerdery, the episode finds Dave Arnold and George Motz riffing and comparing notes at a granular level, which will delight food geeks and burger obsessives alike. The episode remains true to the Cooking Issues tradition—rolling with tangents, offbeat opinions, and practical hacks for listeners to try at home.

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Final Takeaways

• Hamburger America is a guide and a living document—part historian’s compendium, part preservation effort, and all-out celebration of America’s regional burger traditions.
• Motz’s restaurant and pop-ups are as much about historical scholarship as culinary experience, aiming to serve burgers with the same soul as their place of origin.
• The diversity of American hamburgers is immense—with methods ranging from griddle to wet-fry, with obscure regional recipes and ever-passionate locals.
• “Classic” burgers are defined by longevity (20+ years on the menu), authenticity, and taste—novelty alone won’t get you in Motz’s hall of fame.

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For burger fans and food adventurers, this episode offers a wealth of actionable ideas, a spirited roadmap for your next burger pilgrimage, and a reminder: details matter, stories count, and the perfect burger may be closer—or weirder—than you think.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues.

[B]

This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City newsstand studios, brought to you by the IBU farmers of North America. No, we're not, actually. Right now in the studio, we're waiting on George Moats, who's gonna come here and talk about Hamburger America, both the restaurant and the book, in a couple of minutes. In the meantime, I got Joe Hazen rocking the pan. Hey, welcome to the show.

[A]

Sorry for the delay.

[B]

Hey, no worries. I got John chilling in the great state of Connecticut. How you doing? I'm sure we'll try to only briefly talk about Connecticut hamburgers today because we've covered and smothered that sucker on this show many times. How you doing, John?

[C]

Doing great.

[B]

Feeling better?

[C]

Yeah, feeling better.

[B]

Good, good, good. All right, in the upper left hand corner, Mr. Emu himself, we got Quinn. How you doing?

[C]

Oh, boy. I thought I was Mr. Gelato. No, I'm Mr. Emu.

[B]

No, that's just emu. Now, like, all your gelatos are made with emu. All your omelets are made with emu. Everything's only emu. That's all you got on that island is Pamela Anderson and emu. By the way, I was only kidding. We're not. We get no money from any emu farmers. Just be clear, we are not sponsored by the emu. I mean, I don't know. If you. If you bring it in. If you bring it in, you get a chunk. You know what I'm saying? You get some free emu eggs out of it. You know what I mean? We got down there in Los Angeles, Anastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing?

[C]

I'm good, thank you.

[B]

Good. And Jackie, molecules. What's up, Monsieur the Molecule, Yo.

[C]

Recovering from, I guess, pneumonia, but doing fine.

[B]

Ooh, Dax had pneumonia recently. Guess what, dude? When you get yourself a virus, take the Tamiflu. Take the Tamiflu so that you don't get pneumonia. Did you first have a virus and then after the virus, you got, like, a bacterial pneumonia? Is that what happened?

[C]

They don't even know. They just hit me with all the antibiotics and said, I don't know. It's probably pneumonia. Take this.

[B]

So who knows? Yeah, Doc's had, like, you know, diagnosed with a chest X ray pneumonia, but because they didn't give him the Tamiflu, they're like, eh, you could get queasy with the Tamif flu, and the only side effect of not getting it is pneumonia. You know what I Mean, so it was like. It's pretty rough. Anyways, all right, so before George gets here, we can talk about our week in review. I'll give you mine real quick. Last Thursday, I was going to see the almost five hour long Wagner opera Tristan und Isolde at Lincoln center, which was great. It had been very positively reviewed by the New York Times, et cetera, et cetera. Fantastic. But it's a million years long. It goes from 6:30 to 11:40 at night with two intermissions. It's nuts. By the way, people now in operas think that they could take off their shoes like they're at an airplane. So my seat came with a side order of foot stench that was like. I was like, what the hell, dude? First of all, don't take your shoes off on an airplane, but definitely don't take your shoes off at the opera. You know what I mean? No. Anyway, but before that, Karen Stanley Nastasia and my good friend Karen Stanley, who used to be a manager at Existing Conditions and at, you know, Dutch Kills and all that, who's now the head bar, Miguela at Tatiana's, one of the finest restaurants in this here city. Told us to come in, got us in on like a day's notice for like a full meal at Tatiana's beforehand. So we were rolled out of there in a barrel and then went to enjoy our four and a half hours of opera, but had a really good time at Tatiana's. And that is my week in review. What do you fools have?

[C]

Easter ham.

[B]

Oh. Oh, yeah, I forgot it was Easter.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

My mom did. I did Easter at my mom's. So, like, we had a big lamb but we didn't have ham. Talk to me about the ham. What did you get, honey baked or did you get a different ham?

[C]

Didn't get that one, but got one from d'. Artagnan. What they had at the big Y around us, the supermarket and.

[B]

Yeah, that's so Connecticut, dude. The big Y. All they had was d'. Artagnan.

[C]

Yep, exactly. Yeah.

[B]

Did you have to put on a monocle to buy it?

[C]

I wish. And it came in, but yeah, it came out really well. Did it, as you suggested, in the water bag for a couple hours and then just threw in the oven at 500 to crisp up the outside with the glaze and everything. That was delicious.

[B]

That's the way. That's the way, yeah. Did d' Artagnan spiral it or no?

[C]

Yes, they did.

[B]

Nice. I wish they could figure out a way to spiral all the way down to the end. So you always have that part at the end. But I guess you're going to use that for soup anyway. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yes, yes.

[B]

Now here's a question. As a Francophile, when you take the still warm meat and you put it into a bag to put back in the fridge because you haven't finished the whole thing and it forms that gillette like thing around the knuckle on the bottom, like commingle with fat. Do you scrape it off and pitch it or do you use that?

[C]

I scrape it off, throw it in the pan that I heat up and then put other ham cuttings into crisp up.

[B]

I see, I see. Nice. All right.

[C]

Yeah, delicious.

[B]

All right. What about you other fools? What do you got? What do you got, Quinn? What do you got in the way of emu gelato today? Like Vancouver island saffron emu gelato? What do we have in a focaccia cone? In a focaccia cone? It's a Vancouver island saffron emu egg gelato in a focaccia cone. That's the Quinn.

[C]

Yeah, someone's. The discord's already bugging me already. Yesterday they posted some photo from Reddit. I think it was a giant emu ramen egg. And they're like, oh, I found Quinn.

[B]

Nice. All right. So what do you make in the real life though?

[C]

In the real life, I was inspired by the walks of life. You know, we've had them on the show before in one of their videos, they modify one of their stir fried meats, like marinated, deep fried, fully velveted stir fry recipes into a sort of ground meat nugget recipe. So I applied that sort of similar technique to a meatball mixture. So I made like a meatball mixture, but instead of forming, you know, spheres, we made these sort of irregular flour coated nuggets and then sort of almost, you know, stir fried or shallow fried them and then glazed them with the tomato sauce. Turned out pretty good.

[B]

When you say irregular, do you mean that you just didn't care what shape they were?

[C]

Well, they're intentionally breaking them up so that they are craggly, they have less surface area.

[B]

I see. I see.

[C]

And yet the size is variable.

[B]

I see. Have you ever heard of the television show the Facts of Life?

[C]

I've heard of me, but I have not watched it now.

[B]

So it had a, like that era, 70s, early 80s was a very good time for theme songs and the Facts of Life had a good theme song and now I'm singing the Facts of Life, but the walks of life. Yeah. You know what I mean? So you got to just. I'm not going to sing it for you, but just, you know, down, you know, go on YouTube, watch the facts of Life theme song, and then just replace it with walks of life, you know, and then you can know what goes through my head on a regular basis. You know what I'm saying? So how'd they come out? Your nuggets? Your velveted, irregular nuggets.

[C]

Well, no, again, like the. It's actually really funny. I made the sauce to go with it in a pressure cooker and, you know, I knew it would come out pretty loose, like watery.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And that was fine. I was going to reduce it anyways.

[B]

You should always start pressure cook things with less moisture, you know what I'm saying? You want the minutes, like just so it's not going to burn, you know what I'm saying?

[C]

Well, I got, you know, I just added tomato. That was the only source of moisture. And then like a little bit of water to rinse the cans.

[B]

Well, I like that you're like. And a little bit of water.

[C]

Yeah, I knew you're like.

[B]

The only moisture I added was water.

[C]

Just, I knew it was going to be a pretty loose sauce and then, you know, I was going to reduce it anyways. And this wasn't my intention, but like, the strained sauce reduced over the nuggets really did have like a sweet glazed, like takeout restaurant vibe. It was pretty. Pretty funny how it turned out because I was just going for the same sort of texture and form factor from their recipe, but turned out closer to. I could take everything like that.

[B]

You now put the wonder twins into my head, but I'm not going to discuss it. Shape of, form of. All right, Stas, what do you got for me?

[C]

I had Easter dinner at my parents house and they made prime rib.

[B]

Oh, prime rib.

[C]

Yeah. And we all sat down.

[B]

You know what I'm gonna ask?

[C]

What?

[B]

Okay, like, on a scale of like, wow, that's cooked.

[A]

It's cooked.

[B]

How is the prime rib? Or was it rare in the middle?

[C]

It was rare in the middle, but we all sat down and my mom took one bite and then she said, this is a very old cow. And then she took all the prime rib off of our plates and threw it away.

[B]

Come on. Come on. For real.

[C]

Where to? God.

[B]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Hold on. So first of all, did you get a bite of it beforehand?

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And did. Was it especially chewy, as though the meat had an extra amount of collagen in it, or was this just, like, an insanity?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was old. It was old for her to say that.

[B]

This is an old cow, man, Then pick it up and throw it away. It's like that scene in Old Brother. We're out thou where they're eating the horse, and the guy's like, yeah, this

[A]

horse turned about a week ago.

[B]

Wait, wait. Is the point that the cow was literally old, like, in years? Like, long in the tooth or long in the hoof or whatever they call these things? Or did she mean that the meat had been sitting in the butcher shop too long in wrong conditions? Which one of those two? Or both?

[C]

This is a great grandfather cow. Fair assessment.

[B]

Okay. So since I've eaten really, really old cow, and I have to say it was interesting, I've posted it on Instagram. You can go back and look. And John and I have talked about it a number of times, and whatever. You know, Jeffrey Steingarten, you started was like, early on this, like, super old meat from Spain bull crud. And then McGee's talked about so many people. The fat is completely different. So it's, like, weird, and it's like, super yellow. Was the fat super yellow on this one?

[C]

I don't remember looking at it, like, thinking that, but maybe. Yeah.

[B]

So the flavor is usually, like, can be good. Was the flavor not good? It's just the tech or is it texture?

[C]

None of it. None of it was good. I didn't have enough of it because she took it so.

[B]

Because you know, the solution to meat. So first of all, obviously, like, Americans, myself, myself included. Right. Like, when we have a prime rib, we're looking for a texture of a rib steak. So when it's chewy, we're like, nope. You know what I mean? Or if it's got, like, if the cartilage is too much, like, you know that how? In between the cap and there's that, like, cartilage layer. If that's too much, we're like, nope. Or if the silver skin's too strong, especially if you don't cut it open to meat glue it. But we're just not used to eating it chewy, so sometimes it's hard to get past. But you didn't even have enough to judge whether the flavor was good because you can always slice it thin. You know what I'm saying?

[C]

She just said a lot of stuff where you imagine this old cow, and so it's, like, done. Yeah.

[B]

So she ruined it for everyone with the statement. I see, I see. See, with me it would have turned off half the people in my house. But I would have been like, oh cow. All right, okay. You know what I mean? Like I would have been fine with it. But have I told the Miley with the pie story here ever? I did a, like a key lime pie variant with mint in it. Okay. And I made it. It was like a mint lime pie. Like, you know, almost like, like a mojito style. Like a pie key lime. And I bring it out and Miley, she's been on the show, hates mint, hates mint, detests mint, doesn't like any form of mint. Doesn't like mint, mints, mint, anything mint. So I bring it out and she's like, she literally said this and she doesn't even remember saying it. Cause it just came right out of her. Nobody wants your toothpaste pie. And then no one ate a piece of it.

[C]

That was it.

[B]

I had to throw it away because no one wanted a piece. Once she called it a toothpaste pie, nobody wanted it anymore. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Whereas I was like toothpaste pie. Sign me up. Is it real gritty? That's the thing about toothpaste. Mint plus grit. Anyways, by the way, for any of you get your trigger fingers ready and itchy to call in your questions to George Moats about hamburgers. Cause he's gonna be here momentarily. To 917-41-01507. That's 917-410-1507. Of course you can only call if you're listening live, which means that you're a Patreon member. John, why don't you tell them why they might want to do such a thing.

[C]

You can go check it out at patreon.com cookingissues where you can find a couple different membership levels. Every membership level gets you access to our Discord where you get to speak with other like minded fans, ask questions you get when we don't have guests. Dave prioritizes answering your questions. You get access to discounts with booklet people like Kitcheners and letters and so it's just a bunch of great things. So check it out.

[B]

Patreon.com Twinkieish Although Discord people, people who are. So what happens is you join a page, you go on the Discord and you ask questions. Quinn scoops them up and puts them in. I do highly recommend that you folks send us questions for the people who are gonna come on because this is like a good opportunity to talk to these people, ask them questions and so take advantage of it. Right. Otherwise all you get to hear is the crazy crap I wanna ask them. You know what I'm saying? So in the. Oh, by the way, Kitchen Arts and Letters does not carry Hamburger America, I guess. Cause it's not a cookbook. Right. So we're trying to get something together for our patreon people with McNally Jackson. We'll let you know if we get it to go through or not. And last, but certainly not least, before Joe shows up. What's the weekend? Wait, you're recovering from pneumonia, but you ate nothing? Jack, you started, but then I felt like maybe you come up with something.

[C]

No, I cooked for Passover, actually, for my girlfriend is a little surprised. I did the zahav matzo ball soup from their cookbook, which was very, very good. Has, you know, made. Made the stock. Standard stock. And then use black garlic when you heat up the broth.

[B]

Oh, that's non standard.

[C]

Matzo balls from scratch? Yeah, no, it was non standard. The black garlic was good and then the matzo balls were delicious.

[B]

Does it. Does it change the color of the soup?

[C]

Not really. No. It's not too much black garlic. Just like, you know, one little head of it. I guess this is a little darker maybe.

[B]

And what size Matt balls are they? Like what? Like, like, you know, like they can be so many sizes. What size are we talking in terms of a ball? That we all understand.

[C]

They start golf ball and then maybe end up closer to, like between a golf ball and a baseball. Not quite a baseball. That's huge. Definitely bigger than the golf ball. Racket ball. There you go. Yeah. All right.

[B]

How much dill?

[A]

Yeah, Any dill?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Top it off with dill there at the end.

[B]

All right. And what do you use to lighten if anything? Your matzo balls. What's the key there?

[C]

Baking powder.

[B]

All right, so Joe here has some serious opinions. So what are your thoughts on matzo? But I'm sure, you know, I know I would just use matzo meal. Yeah, but you don't add anything else to, like, make it puff? No, the matzo melon is enough for me.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

I guess you really shouldn't live in it, huh? What did you guys. At your house, did you do both Easter and Passover or. No, no, we just did Passover. We did an egg hunt. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Growing up, we'd never celebrated Easter.

[A]

My mother went to church.

[B]

But during Passover, we would have a seder at the house. Yeah.

[C]

All right, cool. Yeah.

[A]

This year I made a charoset, which Is the mortar.

[B]

Whatever represents the mortar. An Iranian charoset with apricots, dates, hazelnuts, almonds, bananas. Which is the secret? Orange zest, pomegranate juice, grape juice, kosher

[A]

wine, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon.

[B]

Delicious, man, delicious. And is this something you've made before or is this. I've made it one time before. I perfected it this time. Huh. Oh, a pear and an apple. You're like, oh, plus a pear and an apple. Yeah. All right. A lot of ingredients, but it turns,

[A]

it yields a delicious little tasty thing.

[B]

Oh, you got to put it up on our Patreon. Oh, I can pass it on, sure. Yeah, pass it on to Quinn. Put up on our Patreon. Speaking of which, there's going to be a new sifter, which I'm not going to talk about that. There's going to be a video post and I'm gonna. If anyone out there on our Patreon owns a mill and or has access to a 3D FDM 3D printer, I can give you the files. All right, so while we are waiting for George. Did I miss anyone? Did I miss anything?

[C]

Nope, we're good.

[B]

All right, cool. So I'm still. I got a question for Contra Cookbook, but I haven't seen those fools today, so I'll wait to answer that. And I haven't heard back for O and K for a wily. So let's look at some other questions from our users while we're waiting. From Tyv Mush, I've sifted some hazelnut flour through a coarse mesh. Through a coarse. Through a coarse mesh strainer. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time saying that to get it finer, but I'm left with about an equal amount of cornmeal sized nut flour, slightly larger. Is there an efficient way to get the coarse stuff finer? Yeah, yeah, put it back. Put it back into the. Into the blender, my man. You know what I mean? Put it back in the blender, people. Is there an efficient way to get the stuff finer? It's too coarse to use for tart dough. I pulsed it with the cocoa powder from the recipe. Much better. Still curious if anyone has other ideas. Yeah, so that's a good idea because cocoa flour, really cocoa, sorry, cocoa powder can't really get much finer. It's extremely fine. So you're not going to hurt it any. Really. Anything that's going to stop the nuts from pasting when you re blend it and bulks it up enough to get it to where you can actively blend or pulse it is going to be fine. So you can do it with sugar, you can do it with. There's not going to be probably enough salt in it. But you could do it with salt. You could do it really with anything. By the way, I know I've said this before, but the power move that if you're going to add things that are too coarse, for instance, salt to a recipe later, let's say you do. Let's say you're doing an autolyzed step on your bread and you add the salt to a fully compounded dough. After you've let it rest for half hour like the ras of folks do, it's really good idea to pulse the hell out of your salt in a small blender to make it into a powder because then it's just going to go in much faster. So that's one thing I'll say on powdering, powdering things. All right, from. All right, now, John, did Quinn send you the picture yet or. No,

[C]

I don't have a question.

[B]

Yeah, well, we're gonna answer the question now. So now would be a good time to send it to him. We got. Danny G. Has gone back and forth with us on the on off on off cooking. And I'm. I want John in on this because John also is a fan of the off on off on cooking. And Danny was having a problem getting like what we said that we get out of it, which is kind of like a nice, you know, good crust transition between crust and interior and a non overcooked interior without having to worry a lot. That's the advantage. Now I'll also say this. I, of course, because I've been doing this for infinity years, know how to take a piece of meat and put a hard crust on the two sides of it and have the inside be all one color. It turns out like low temperature cooking, you can do this. You can then chill the meat down hard, sear the outside of it and basically have crust wall to wall, one doneness crust. Most people actually don't like to eat that kind of meat. They don't really like it. You know what I mean? What people actually like to do is cut through. Most people, not everyone cut through a piece of meat, have a difference in texture between the top surface, which is a crust, but then below the top surface to the center, which they want. They want the average to be a certain thing, but they really want that textural difference. Wouldn't you say so, John?

[C]

Yeah, agreed.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Especially on something like the primer.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So Danny G was having a difficult time achieving this with my preferred method is very hot heat. Put it on, pull it off, and you just keep doing that until the internal temperature gets where you want it to be. And you can also then let it rest for a while and reheat it at the end. So you can do a large quantity of meat. Meat this way. And kind of what I like about it is you don't need to think about the temperature of the grill or the surface because the answer is it's hot. It's hot. You know what I mean? And then it's just about how long you take it off and put it on. What were you going to say, Quinn?

[C]

I want to clarify something because I sent John the image and he's going to see it was Danny G. And in his question clarifies that he didn't have.

[B]

Yeah, I know, it's AI. It's AI, right?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

[B]

I'll get to it. Don't worry. I know that I read the question, but my point is it's the funniest AI. It's the funniest AI image I've ever seen in my life. So with Danny G's permission, I would like to put what AI thinks Danny G's meet looked like. I hear we have George coming in. So, Danny G, if I have time, at the end of this, I have an answer for you. I think I've solved your problem. But we might have to get to it next because I think we just got George getting ready to come in the studio. Give us a second, we'll be right back. And we are back with George Moats, the proprietor, chef and burger historian of Hamburger America and the recent publisher of the 4th, 4th, 4th. 4th edition of Hamburger America revised, expanded, and I'll say contracted because you have removed. Oh, welcome.

[A]

Oh, thank you. Hi. Good to see you, dude.

[B]

Yeah. So, you know, look, we had what I thought was a fruitful conversation about hamburgers right before you opened the restaurant Hamburger America. And you know, you re released this book which is substantially larger, right?

[A]

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's almost 500 pages. That's a lot. That's 159,000 words dedicated. Every word dedicated to the hamburger.

[B]

Well, you do mention other things. Yeah, I have to. Yeah. In fact, there is a. Literally. There's literally. I swear to God, in this book, if you can find it, there's a two page spread of like, by the way, here's some stuff you should order. That's not A burger at these places.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Yeah. And the other thing is, is that he'll go to all these restaurants and he's like, listen, I know. I know this restaurant's known for X, Y and Z, but I'm here for the burgers. There's burgers. Burgers. You know what I mean?

[A]

So it's important. I think it's important. Obviously, you get on the road, it's not all about burgers. It's about everything else. And it's my little way of making sure that people don't forget the side dishes sometimes. I mean, most cases, fries always suck. In restaurants, they usually suck.

[B]

They usually suck. At burger places, they usually suck. You know who doesn't like fries very much? I've said this a million times. Nastasia. The Hammer Lopez. Not a fry person.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

But I texted her a picture of the book last night. What's that place I texted Eustace in la, the Apple Slice. What's it called? Apple Pan.

[A]

Apple Pan.

[B]

Apple Slice. Apple Pan. And I was like, legit. And Stas was like, yeah, legit. You actually like that place, right, Stas? Maybe she dropped. She lives in this place where the Internet just freaking dies.

[A]

The mountains.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Basically the mountains of Los Angeles.

[A]

She lives in the subway.

[B]

Yeah, that's where I. That's where basically, like, you know, like, we're all trogodites here. You know what I mean? But I feel that's a word that doesn't get used enough.

[A]

Trogodite. It doesn't. Yeah, yeah, let's bring it back, Dave.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. All right, so listen, we're going to skip, like, your history as a movie guy and, like, how you got into this, your documentary, which anyone worth anything has seen. Have you ever. You haven't revised that, though, right? That's just a document.

[A]

No, someone. I mean, yesterday asked me if I would think I was considered doing it. I consider it. Sure. Why not? But it's been 25 years.

[B]

Yeah, but you know what someone needs to do? Write a check.

[A]

Write a check. Yeah. Money talks, right?

[B]

Right. Well, I mean, like. I mean, like, you're. You're, you know, film person. Right? That's the thing. Oh, who's gonna write the check?

[A]

Right? But the issue is not so much the money. It's really that what happens. I mean, I used to walk into these places and they look at me and they say, you're crazy. It's just a hamburger. Why make such a big deal out of this? It's like, because that's what I do. I'm excited about American culture and. And hamburgers. And they would think I was nuts. And so I made a film. And now if I go back to these places, they all know who I am. It's sort of the. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. I don't know how I'd walk into any place that, for this film and treat it like it was like they'd never heard of me before.

[B]

You have to do like old school Ryko and like get some sort of like, you know, you'd have to de Wolverine yourself and like. And if you guys are on the Patreon, you can see what's going on. And then like. Yeah, put on like a giant wig, you know what I mean? And like go in maybe looking like. I feel like if you walked in with a full on 70s bozo outfit, no one would look at you. They'd be too frightened, right.

[A]

They would just give him what he

[B]

wants, move on, give Bozo his burger. You know what I mean?

[A]

He's got a pen and paper. What is he doing?

[B]

Yeah. And then you take it off. Surprise. It's me. You know what I mean?

[C]

Right, right.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You know. Cause it is true though, like, it's a very different experience going to someplace when they know you versus when they don't know you.

[A]

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if I don't want special treatment when I walk into these places ever, I want the treatment that everyone else gets. Because I mean, if I'm trying to write a gu. It doesn't do anyone any. It's a complete disservice if I'm given like, oh, the double patty when it's only ever a single. Or the special bun we have in the back for, you know, for VIPs. I don't want that.

[B]

All right, so speaking of this as like. So if you're thinking of it like a guidebook, right? So for me, like, I'm never gonna go, first of all, I'm never gonna. I mean, like, I wish I could go. My brother in law, Travis, who shot my book, right? He has had a grilled cheese sandwich in 50 states. Sorry, 49 states he's missed. Well, maybe 48, he's missed one or two he can't remember. He's had one in. I think it's North Dakota. I don't know whether he's like one of the Dakotas he's missed in Hawaii. Cause he's never been to Hawaii.

[A]

That's an achievement.

[B]

Yeah. So it's grilled cheese in every state. And I was like, how were they? He's like, fine, I'm a vegetarian. And so basically I know that I can get a grilled cheese. And so I just made sure that wherever I go, I get a grilled cheese so that I could say I had a grilled cheese. But he never, like, recorded or anything. And unlike, you know, if you actually look up. Cause I did once. I looked up best grilled cheeses, and it's just some sort of AI slop, like, you know, scraped off of, like, you know, local Yelp pages, and it's all of these things that are, you know, all same. Not your book.

[A]

No, this is the real deal.

[B]

Yeah. But as a guidebook, there are some bones that I have to pick. Because you took some of the stuff that was. Cause you're also a hamburger historian, a preservationist. Yes. So for instance, the goober burger.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. Was in the original thing.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Place closed and now it's not represented anymore. There's not like a land that, you know, that time forgot kind of a situation where it's, like, gone but not forgotten or something. There's no place for, you know, like, recently lost, historically interesting burgers.

[A]

Actually, Dave, there is. Where is it? Glad you should mention it. My other book.

[B]

But is it still available or.

[C]

No?

[A]

Well, it's called the Great American Burger. It's the cookbook. The cookbook is the place where all those burgers land. If you need to recreate a burger from history, it's in that book. See?

[B]

Smarter. Smarter than I thought. Like, I gotta buy two books, you know?

[A]

That one's hardcover, too.

[B]

Yeah. All right. All right. When you cook, do you cook with a book or do you, like, read the book and then go cook?

[A]

Oh, it depends what we're talking about. I mean, if I'm trying to recreate something from my books, I look at the book. Obviously, a lot of times I cook just by touch and feel and smell and taste. Obviously.

[B]

Yeah. So last time you were on, you were about to open, but had not opened the restaurant yet. And I know that prior to that, you did 8 billion pop ups for a jillion people with, you know, your. At the time, you were still. And you still, I guess, love the Oklahoma onion burger situation. Which, by the way, the onion's not only cheaper as you write in the book. Cause you go through, by the way, if you do not like onions. Maybe, like, this book is so replete with onions. I can almost smell onions reading the book.

[A]

It's Me. That's what you say.

[B]

Sorry. It's like super onions. Like, one of the places I forget which one literally is like. Like, we won't cook it without onions. Suck it.

[A]

That's right. No onions, no food. Sorry.

[B]

Yeah, sorry, sorry. It's like, it's gonna taste like onions anyway because this griddle is nothing but onions. So you know what I mean? But how much of it is that? You think it was cheaper? It's also, if you're gonna smash it, a fantastic nonstick device, because burgers, unless your spatula is just the right heat when you smack it down to squish it, you know, meat stick. I mean, that's why when I'm doing it at home, since I'm a chump, I use parchment, so I'm a guaranteed peel. You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. That's a good way. A good scientific way to pull it off. But it's amazing how many people I see on the Internet who will put the onions on the wrong side and say, I can't. The beef keeps sticking to the spatula when I smash. Because you don't have that, you know, that barrier of onion between the beef and the spatula.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You have parchment paper, which works obviously, also, but there should be onions there.

[B]

Well, and this is a good reason. I know you love this. You sit as close to the. If you can sit close to the machinery. You sit close to the machinery so you can see what's going on.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the restaurant, you mean?

[B]

Yeah. So you can see what people do. Because it's all about what's in their hand. Yeah.

[A]

There's no secrets. You walk into the restaurant, you can sit. Literally can sit. You can almost. You shouldn't. But you could almost touch the griddle if you wanted to.

[B]

Well, you have a sneeze guard.

[A]

We have a sneeze guard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was. That was Biden. DOH had made us put that up. Otherwise, hey, if it wasn't for doh, you could practically sit, you know, next to the griddle if you wanted to, and hang out and talk to us. There are no secrets there. It's all right there. You can see everything happening. If you have a. If you have any interest in and how these burgers are made and you can follow what we're doing, you can go home and do the same thing.

[B]

And he has, like, George has a rear section and a front section, and you're usually manning the front flat top.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

They call the front griddle the show griddle, sometimes called the vacation, because everything is made there, but it's all made 15 stools at a time.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

We have 15 stools to feed, and then once they're fed, you kind of twiddling your thumbs in the back. That's the machine. The back is the. Those are two griddles that are the same size as mine in the front, but there are two of them, and they're cranking out all the orders to go and to sit in the. Or to sit outside and. Which is a lot more than we're doing at the counter.

[B]

And so I forget, you're not a chrome griddle guy. You're a black griddle guy, Right?

[A]

Yes. It has to be steel. Yeah. Again, everything we do in the restaurant is based on history, based on what already works at other restaurants. I've watched what goes on. I've looked at the methods, the ingredients and the equipment, and everything we do is based on. Just based on that. We're not trying to recreate anything. We're just trying to make sure that we're getting it accurate, making sure it's historically accurate and it works.

[B]

Right. So you're also a huge fan. And look, I guess the problem is most people at home, so the majority of people who are listening to this are probably cooking at home. And most of them don't have. They're not cooking on a large flat top. And so you're a huge fan. They can use a lid on the pan, obviously, if they're doing a pan. But you're a huge fan of, like, the small stainless cloche.

[A]

Yeah, I'm a fan at home of a cast iron skillet. But if you can get the largest skillet you can find to put on your cooktop, you're halfway there. The rest is just trying to figure out the temperature, the heat, obviously, and the ingredients and the type of grind you're using. All those kinds of things are very important. But again, just come watch us.

[B]

So. Well, before I get into the book proper and whatever questions and bones and whatnot, you are also, like I said, you consider yourself a hamburger historian, but a living historian. So you will actually, at Hamburg, America. I don't know if everyone knows this, but once a month, usually, you will do an historically important burger. You will contact said people, and usually they will bring an ingredient or their human flesh sacks to your restaurant, and you will make it. You will ship in whatever ingredients you need to do that, and then they will bless it and be like, yes, this is how it should taste. And I've seen them do this many times. And then you serve it out for a short period of time. So what have you learned from doing this? That.

[A]

Well, we learned that it's important to get the details correct. Like to actually, we get into the granular detail, Granular details of these burgers. We make sure that they are completely accurate recreations of these burgers. Right to the point where. I don't know if we talked about this before, but we recreated the long gone now, as of 17 years, almost 18 years now, the Yankee Doodle. The Doodle burger. And that burger was served with a tiny little paper ramekin of red relish. And what we would do is you would actually. We'd serve it with the burger, obviously, because that's what they did at the Yankee Doodle. And people would look at it and go, what's this for? What's this red stuff? It's like, aha. You didn't go to Yale or you weren't from New Haven. And so. But you'd watch people walk in, take that cup, turn it upside down and pinch it and it would land on the burger and you'd say, aha. This person's obviously knows they've been there. And then they start crying because they realize that the sense memory comes back fast. Yeah.

[B]

I used to get the pigs in a blanket there, which were hot dogs wrapped in bacon, fried on a split buttered hot dog bun.

[A]

We actually made that for a regular months ago. He kept asking me over and over and over again. I said, come on, he's there every day. He's there literally every single day at 3:30. And he said, could you make me one? And I said, come back tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. And I actually pulled it off.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And he said, that's really good. You should do more of those.

[B]

Yeah. We were like, no, I did one, I did two.

[A]

The first one we failed at, the second one was his.

[B]

Yeah. So the Yankee Doodle had a great sign.

[A]

Had a great sign. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Anyway, so we try to get into details.

[A]

Details are very important for us because we want to make sure that we're doing it correctly. And honestly, we have. It's been a lot harder than I thought, this program, because we've had to not include burgers because we couldn't get the ingredients. They didn't want to give us recipes, the recipes from the actual restaurant. So it was very. Sometimes it doesn't happen, but the ones that you have on the menu, we have worked very, very hard to make sure they're a deadly accurate.

[B]

Well, the crazy one was you put the burger from. Was it Camilla Grill? Yeah. But it wasn't actually the burger. In the book, you did a po boy hamburger, and then you shipped up, like, flash frozen. Shipped up. Up the po' boy bread. And you had to thaw it, like, 13 seconds before you serve it because it goes stale.

[A]

Exactly. I'm glad you caught that, because it's very important that we actually have a freezer on the floor. We have a freezer, obviously downstairs. We have another freezer upstairs. And the crew is instructed to not pull that bread out until at least five minutes before we're ready to make that burger. And we can judge how many burgers we're gonna make, how many po Boys we're gonna make. Because it defrosts so fast, it defrosts in five minutes. We can also slice it and put it on the flat top, which they're supposed to do. It's very accurate to give it a light toast on the griddle and. But you have to do that. Otherwise the minute you turn into a baseball bat in 10 minutes, it'll be stale.

[B]

Yeah. The messiest burger I ever saw, you guys. Because I haven't been to all of them, unfortunately. Like, I missed some of the ones I really. I missed. Slug burger, which was recently.

[A]

No, we actually had to push that one.

[B]

Oh, damn.

[A]

Yes, you did miss it. You're good.

[B]

All right, it's coming up. We'll talk. We'll talk about it. But the messiest one was the one from. My God. Why did the name go out of my head? It's right in my neighborhood, where I grew up. But Purdy's.

[A]

Purdy's Purdy.

[B]

You know, like Crossroads, The Blazer Pub. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, my God, that's a great. The Celsus Burger.

[B]

Oh, my God. That was a sneeze guards. Words nightmare. That sneeze guard was like a reverse sneeze guard. You were getting guarded from the sneeze off of the flat top.

[A]

That's right. Exactly.

[B]

It was a sputtering. A sputtering thick patty, too.

[A]

We don't do thick patties ever. And that was. We wanted to make that burger happen. It's a thick patty, so we made it.

[B]

Well, it's interesting. You're not a thick patty man yourself. However, I've noticed that in the book, you quote, unquote. Actually, I don't know whether you said this, but the Internet says about you that you pick no favorites. But clearly you have favorites. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but the point is that you seem to gravitate either towards a loose style or just. But nothing in between or smashed, but nothing kind. You're not an in betweener.

[A]

Well, if the burger's great, I'm there, you know, it doesn't really matter how it's made to me. I mean, there's so many different methods, you know, know that how burgers are made. They're steamed, they're. They're fried, they're deep fried, they're. They're smashed flat, they're. They're pattied. Hand patted, they're machine pattied. It doesn't really matter to me. I do tend to. I like the ones that just have great history.

[B]

Yeah. So George, I like, said this already. Likes onion. Every single patty. Frozen. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

[A]

Frozen. No, frozen.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Hates frozen.

[A]

Scientifically. Does terrible things to the beef, you know.

[B]

Hate, hates, hates.

[A]

Oh, no, no.

[B]

Hates freezing. Like it's like, you know, it's like you ask all, you know, that's the one thing that you know. It's 220 restaurants basically. 220 times. It's like, are they frozen?

[A]

No, you have to ask that question. Yeah, everyone should ask that question. Do you freeze your patties? I can always tell now when I ask that question to a new restaurant or a restaurant that I'm discovering for the first time. The way they answer the question is always telling the tell, you know, let me find out. And then you know that something might be wrong.

[B]

So I mean this. With the exception of the slug burger, these are beef burgers in here. Is there any alternative burger product, burger meat that you actually enjoy having?

[A]

I mean, outside of to make a burger? Yeah. No. To me, I'm an absolute purist, a total purist. And the burger should be made only with meat from a cow.

[B]

Yeah. Have you tried yak?

[A]

I have not tried yak. No. Should I?

[B]

I mean like I only had yak steak and it's real good.

[A]

Can you put cow, can you put cow fat in it?

[B]

I'm sure you could.

[A]

The flavor comes from anyway.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting. I did a bunch of research and we always say fat equals flavor, right? But it turns out that most of the fat that brings the flavor of the meat isn't necessarily the intramuscular fat. It's the actual fat in the membranes around the cells.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah. So it's like you can't get the flavor. So we used to do stuff where we would cheat, we would Take beef and layer it with lamb fat and you get some lamb flavor that way. But it's still not lamb tasting. Cause you don't have the actual fat that's in the cell membranes is still, you know, not the right fat.

[A]

So Dave is actually pointing at himself while he's talking about cell membranes.

[B]

Well, you have this. So what's the butcher. So there's one store. What's the place in here that's in an actual butcher shop where you order meat and hamburgers at the same counter.

[A]

There's actually a bunch. There are a bunch that used to be. Oh, a place in Des Moines, Iowa. Yeah, it's called B and B Grocery.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

They actually still. It's one of those rare spots where they actually. They're still butchering beef and making burgers at the counter.

[B]

Right. At the same counter.

[A]

There's so many places in America that were butcher shops that transitioned into hamburger shops because they just. They realized the hamburger business was bigger than the butcher business. Actually, there are many of them that have done that, and they still have their old butcher counters. Now they're using it to serve burgers. That's one of those rare places that is still in transition.

[B]

Plus, give me a ribeye to go.

[A]

Two cheeseburgers and a ribeye. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But it's weird. Like, is it actually fun? Because, like, sometimes being with like a boatload of the raw product can make the cooked product off putting. But not in this situation.

[A]

No, I think it's Des Moines. I think. Des Moines. They're hip to it. They're wise to the, you know, they know where their beef's coming from.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, where the burgers are coming from.

[B]

Like, I've said it. I've said this before, so sorry. Cooking issues, people. But, like, I still remember when I was a kid, my stepfather's father was a butcher. And his father, and his father, and his father and his father all the way back to Italy and then who knows how far back. Butchers, Right. And so when I was a kid, after he, you know, my, you know, after papa had retired, we took him to a slaughterhouse. You know, good old days. So we went to a slaughterhouse and then that. He was like, oh, yeah. And he bought a bunch of tripe. But like, even having the tripe in such close proximity to being at the slaughterhouse, I was like, you know what? I'm good. You know what I mean? So it's like, weird.

[A]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I prefer to see what's going On, I prefer to see the meat that I'm about to eat. The nice thing about the restaurant also is that you're watching ground beef, raw beef being smashed right in front of you. It's not in a kitchen in the back. We're an open kitchen, and you can see everything happening. Some people don't like that.

[B]

Most people do so. But that guy in Des Moines, he drew the cuts on a piece of paper. I'm like, just use your body. It's so much easier to point on your body to where a cut of meat comes from.

[A]

You do it all the time. It's true. It's so true.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

Like, share.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

It's true.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is there any one of the burgers that you've done at Hamburger America where you're like, you know what? Cause I know here's the thing that people, I guess, don't realize. Maybe they do. You didn't just start the restaurant. You did all of this research, had done, like I say, a million pop ups, decided what your way to do it was, and then opened. So it's not like, I mean, it's probably rare that you see a new piece of information on how to cook a burger that's gonna change the way you cook your burger.

[A]

Very rare. Yeah.

[B]

Has it happened?

[A]

Well, a lot of times what'll happen is I'll have an idea of how the burger should be cooked and there's some detail I'm missing. And then we'll get that person in the restaurant from their restaurant, and we have this big press conference. You've been to a few of them before, and they'll say, oh, don't do it this way, do it that way. I never thought of that. And it's the tiniest little things, like how things are made. We actually learned the recipe from a place in Solly's, a place in Milwaukee called Solly's. And he told me, I can't give it to you. But he gave me the recipe for their stewed onions. I've been guessing it for years. And he said, no, George, it's just this.

[B]

Is this the twice cooked one? Is this the one where they pre cook it, let it rest, and then cook it again on the griddle?

[A]

No, this is Solly's is the butter burger. Oh, oh, the butter burger. And they had. They famously have stewed onions. And I surmised there was some kind of like, you know, maybe white wine in there. So that went too far. And it's Actually, in my cookbook, I talk about the recipe for the stewed onions. And he was laughing at me saying, no, it's not. You're so far off in the cookbook. I said, well, I was just. I didn't want it. I don't want your recipes. And he gave me the recipe, which I won't give you.

[B]

But. So may I ask you a question?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you're not gonna get the recipe. We're not gonna pry an eye. Cause, like, you know, George isn't gonna be doing that to someone. But how close is your totally off recipe, taste wise? Cause there's a million ways to get to the same place.

[A]

It's true. So it was pre, but it wasn't there. I knew something was wrong. And when we finally made it the right way for the restaurant, he told. He gave me the recipes. Don't tell anybody. I won't tell anybody. It was obviously exactly that which I was so happy about.

[B]

So when you made it the way he said, it was spot.

[A]

Oh, spot on. Yeah, spot on.

[B]

All right, so here we go. Here are some bones to pick before we get going in the time we're on. Abbreviated menu. Abbreviated time here today, but. So why do you hate Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, West Virginia, and Wyoming?

[A]

Well, there's no hate. You tell me, why are there no classic burgers in these states?

[B]

Whoa, you're saying there's no classic burger in Alabama anywhere?

[A]

There are, unfortunately, some of the best ones closed, and a few of them I've reached out to. So a lot of times what happens when I'm making this book and doing research is that I'll reach out to someone. They'll say, no, go away. I'm like, oh, okay. But we're trying to. We don't care. They just don't care. Some people just don't care. They don't need to be in a book. They make their burgers, they go home, they wake up in the morning, do it again.

[B]

If Louie's lunch is gonna talk to you, anyone will talk to you.

[A]

Well, by the way, they barely talk to me. I've been there before. They don't really talk, you know, I mean, at this point, it's taken decades to try to get onto their good side.

[B]

All they say to me is, we're out. You should have come earlier.

[A]

That's right. It's like we're closing. Hurry up.

[B]

I'm like, what the hell, dude? Buy more meat, jerk.

[A]

It's a wonderful place. And they're a very important part of history. But at the same time, they don't really care that they're in the book or not. They do, I think a little bit, but not so much. So that's one of the challenges, people. There aren't many places in Alaska. Let's just start there for starters. Right. Easily. Wyoming, a bunch of the old places have closed. We just lost One, I think 120-year-old restaurant in Wyoming closed. I missed it. I didn't get a chance to go there. Alabama, there are places I have had a really hard time trying to find them. There are newer places. I mean, to be in the book, you have to have a burger on the menu for over 20 years.

[B]

Oh, that's the rule.

[A]

That's the rule. That's the starting rule. It has to be a great burger and it's gotta be made from beef. But that's it. I mean, that's, that's there. It's kind of hard to find those places. The reason we have that cutoff is because if you, if you own a restaurant for 20 years, 18 to 20 years, you're probably thinking about selling it. You're handing off to the next generation. And those are the burger places I want to talk about.

[B]

Yeah. So for those of you in Wyoming, West Virginia, Hawaii, Arizona, Alabama, Alaska, please send George your 20 year plus recipe.

[A]

Please don't. Please do. Please do.

[B]

Now. What percentage now in the back actually you credit your burger army who feeds you information?

[A]

EBTs. My expert burger tasters.

[B]

Yeah. So how often when someone recommends something to you or you're like, been there, hated it. You don't put anything in here you don't like?

[A]

Yeah, no, no. It's all everything I like in there, which I appreciate. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So if I ask you a question about one and it's not in here, well, you tell me what you think. So my dad's favorite burger. I've only been there once with Harold McGee, like maybe 15, 18 years. Palo Alto. Kirk Steakburger.

[A]

Ooh, I've never heard of it. There you go.

[B]

Yeah. So it's in Palo Alto. My dad in the early 70s, so we moved out of Palo Alto in like 74, 73. 74.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He used to go there and get them, take them home and eat Kirk steak burgers with bottles of Richborg drc Reichborg. It wasn't expensive back in the day. It wasn't that expensive in the early 70s. And so I went back there with Harold McGee and it was still pretty good. And it's still Kirk's. It's still just Kirk Steak Burgers.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, good. I've never heard of that. Now, one for the. I take all this stuff very seriously. And if somebody does send me a suggestion, it goes into a massive file I have and my version of how serious they may have been about the suggestion.

[B]

Yeah. Well. And this place was there before, you know, Palo Alto was Silicon Valley. Right. So, like, to give you an example, I think my parents sold the house when they moved out here to New York for something like $35,000.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

I just literally just drove through Palo Alto last week.

[B]

I'm sorry, man.

[A]

That is bizarre.

[B]

Sorry, Dave.

[A]

If that happened before, I would have been there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a quick stop. It's easy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It might have moved because it's in a strip mall. I don't think they had strip mall. I don't know. I was too young to remember.

[A]

I'll find out.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure you will.

[C]

Curse.

[B]

All right. Another one. I thought, like, I could give you something, but I can't. In Venice, Florida. My grandparents. You know what Gunter Gable Williams was?

[A]

No, who was that?

[B]

He was the famous 70s and 80s Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus animal trainer.

[A]

Gunter. Yeah. Okay.

[B]

Gunther Gable Williams. Yeah. He has a famous steak sauce. I know you like weird sauces that people make, and he had one, but this. The only place that makes it is the Crow's Nest in Venice, which is a steakhouse. But morons, they don't put it on any of their burgers. They don't have a Gunter Gable Williams burger.

[A]

That's bizarre.

[B]

It's so dumb.

[A]

You should.

[B]

It's so stupid. Right. And it's an interesting sauce because I'm not usually a barbecue. A steak sauce guy, but you saute onions, so I know you're in.

[A]

Yep. Amen.

[B]

Then deglaze with scotch, soy, brown sugar, mustard and Worcestershire.

[A]

That's pretty basic. Wow. That's it.

[B]

Yeah, that's it. That's Gunter Gable.

[A]

Good Gunter.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Right. All right, now. Oh, one other thing.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

I promised people before you came here I wasn't going to talk too much about Connecticut burgers, and I won't. Except for Shady Glen, which is home of the cheese wings.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Which. The Bernese burger. Right. Which you call a stunt burger. Okay.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Okay. Cause for those of you that don't know and have never seen the Flying Nun, what happens is you put the burger down and you put four slices of cheese on the burger, and then the guy Makes a frico and then lifts them up and they stay erect in the air. Like, you know, if you've never seen a flying mountain, it's more like a manta ray.

[A]

It's like a crown. It's like a strange cheese crown.

[B]

Yeah. And the problem is, if you're gonna take it outside, they put it into a box and kind of. And then it kind of.

[A]

You gotta see it before you gotta see it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You gotta walk to the back of the restaurant and watch them as they're doing.

[A]

Exactly, yeah.

[B]

And get the ice cream, yada, yada. But in the thing, you're like, they use a squishy bun. I'm like, no, they don't. They use the Kaiser. And then I looked at my phone, at the pictures, and the last two times I went, they're Kaiser. But they must have switched to squishy because you have squishy on the thing.

[A]

They did switch. Yes, they did.

[B]

Why? They were one of the people that turned me back to Kaiser. I've been anti Kaiser for years. I'm like the Kaiser because I grew up hard roll here in New York, where it's like buttered roll, butter roll, butter roll. Kaiser with poppy on it.

[A]

Boom. But generations go through and changes happen. I mean, Dave, this is why this book is so revised. Every word in this book is revised because that kind of stuff happens. I have to go back and ask. People are laughing like, oh, what, did their buttons change? Yeah, a lot of places change their buttons.

[B]

Why the hell would you switch away from Kaiser? They got good Kaiser. Why the hell would you switch away?

[A]

Who knows who. The baker could have died. I mean, there's a place in there in Connecticut. Also Harry's, Harry's. Harry's place, which I haven't been to.

[B]

And I never haven't been to the one in New London. So I asked my son to go there. Fred's.

[A]

Fred's. Fred's.

[B]

Fred's. Frank. Frank. Whatever the shanty. Whatever the shanty.

[A]

Yeah, the one on the water. I'm like, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I've never been my son, but he's 21 now, so he can also have a beer.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Legally.

[A]

Perfect. Yeah. But what we're talking about. Harry's. Harry's. Harry's.

[B]

Colchester. Yeah, And Colchester.

[A]

They actually just changed their buns after a hundred and something years because the baker went out of business across the street.

[B]

Well, you know the way it goes. Make them yourself, dude.

[A]

So that's what this book is all about. It's all about details like that.

[B]

All right. So in the time we have left, basically, the book kind of divides. I divide it. You don't. I do. Into, like, places that are there because they have a stunt burger, which. A stunt burger is like anything that's like six burgers tall or is completely inedible because it's so huge or, you know, like. Those are stunt burgers. Although I thought an interesting take on the stunt burger was the one that serves it on a 7 inch, which is large. People, if you're not doing the math. Bun in a pie plate cut into quarters.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know what I mean? Somewhere out west.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Shareable.

[A]

Mears, Oklahoma.

[B]

That takes it away from stunt, I think, like, once it's eatable.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It's true. It does take away. But it's stunt. Ish. So that. I mean, stunt should be used loosely, obviously, because stunt. Today's stunt burgers are much different. Or any kind of stunt food at all is much different than. Than the stunt burgers of history.

[B]

Right, Right. But people had to make a mark. So I guess Bernice is there because someone's like, we need something that's gonna set us apart. It's the cheese wings.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah. Are steamed cheeseburgers a stunt?

[A]

No, steam cheese is just a method.

[B]

All right, cool. So we're gonna get into methods. Then there's the ones that have a history vibe and. Or a family thing or places you just wanna be. That's the kind of mentality of. They're not necessarily. Some of them are dive bars, but they're not. It's more about the place.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Right. Then there are ones that are just. Just excellent. And you're just like, this has to be here because it tastes good. You know what I mean? And then there are differences. Ones that have a different way of making them. And that's kind of what I want to hone in on, is differences. So, like, of all the ones, let's start with stupid difference what people think are stupid. Like, but you take note of in here where the veg is placed. So there's one I remember that does a double patty with veg in between. And you're like, unusual.

[A]

Unusual. That's the spot. Right. The spot in Carpenteria, California.

[B]

You're going to remember much better than I will. And then there's a couple that put the veg underneath.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

So what are your thoughts?

[A]

Having had this million ways I had in Cloquet, Minnesota.

[B]

So what are your thoughts?

[A]

So. Well, there's a lot of reasons why I mean, the lettuce and the vegetables in between is an odd thing for me. I don't know why that's happening because it doesn't make the burger taste any different. I don't think the reason that you have vegetables on the bottom is they're literally just prepping the bun for the burgers that patties that are showing going up so someone else can prep the buns and then the grill cook will then just drop the patties on top and they get wrapped up. It's just for speed, right? That's the only reason why there's no reason why it's on the top in the first place. Then if you have a po boy like at the restaurant right now, the. The hamburger poboy, most of the of the stuff is on top. And who knows why? I just. The way they've always done it, they

[B]

can still get them right now up until today.

[A]

That's it today.

[B]

Oh my God. So you have to be listening live on the Patreon and going to get it. Otherwise you're toast, you're out. Another reason John and Quinn to be a member of the Patreon, am I right? I think so.

[C]

So many reasons, Dave.

[B]

So many, so many. Cause you now just got your last call to last call for po boy bread. Now another one. A difference is when you're gonna go double burger some places. And this I hadn't even thought about because I don't travel the country looking for burgers stupidly, I guess, is sometimes when you order a double, they make two patties and sometimes they put two balls and go Sheboygan and like push them. There actually is a restaurant from Shebo and you put. And you. And you push the. The burgers down into a single patty,

[A]

which is double the size.

[B]

No. And what are your thoughts on that? Which do you. What like, like.

[A]

So the original double in America was double meat, which literally just meant double the size of the meat patty. They would take two balls and press them together and you have a double. The double itself, the double patty burger may have been. It was very likely invented by Bob's Big Boy. They were the first to actually invent a double patty burger on the same bun. Revolutionary, but a long, long time ago, I think, I believe it was the 1920s that was invented way back when. So what's really I find totally fascinating is that these places are going away. But there's a place right near New York, the white man in Jersey. If you ask for a double, you get double double meat, not double patty.

[B]

Did they call it Taylor ham. Or do they call it pork roll?

[A]

So if you're, if you're in the north, it's Taylor Hamilton, right? Oh, no, I'm getting this wrong. I think it's in the north, it's Taylor ham. In the south, where it's actually from, it's called pork roll.

[B]

So do you ever get the burger with the Taylor?

[A]

No, it's too salty.

[B]

Oh, come on, dude.

[A]

No. I'll take an egg sandwich with a Taylor.

[B]

But you only have one burger in here. I think that has an egg on it.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, that's right. Eggs on burgers are not a common

[B]

thing in the US Although you don't like your El mago des fritas with an egg on it. Caballero style.

[A]

Caballero.

[B]

Caballero.

[A]

Cabelo.

[B]

It's not Caleira. I don't know.

[A]

I can't remember.

[B]

I don't.

[C]

Whatever.

[A]

We don't speak Spanish, unfortunately. But yeah. So with an egg. No, I don't get it that way. I like the traditional.

[B]

I know it's good on the potatoes, dude.

[A]

In fact, actually next month we're featuring that burger on the menu with the egg on it.

[B]

What?

[A]

But it's a lightly scrambled egg. Did you know that there.

[B]

Oh, no, I didn't know that.

[A]

From the Texas Tavern in Roanoke, Virginia.

[B]

Oh, cool. All right.

[A]

It's a good burger.

[B]

So. By the way, there is a difference. And you can read the two page spread on this. Between sliders and mini burgers. And George prefers the mini burger. I'm just kidding. I'm just messing with you. So a mini burger is when you go to a cocktail party and something like where a tiny stale bun and a large undercooked in the middle, but dead cold piece of meat in between. That's a mini burger.

[A]

If the first thing you say is, that's so cute, you know it's not gonna taste good.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I mean, that's the thing about it. If you. Oh, that's so cute. And then you taste it and you go, ah. Oh God, I've been duped again.

[B]

Yeah. By the way, my personal burgers at home are quarters. Quarters. Yeah. Like quarter pound. Quarter pound. Right. All of these ones. Because so many of these are like half pound burgers. My God. Yeah.

[A]

Which are great. You can have them, but you're not going to want to go back and eat one tomorrow. You're going to wait another two, three months before you have that burger again.

[B]

All right, so let's talk about some of the odd ones. First of All. Let's talk about ones that are floured, breaded, or contain bread. So there's the. What was the one that had biscuits in it? That's not part of.

[A]

Not.

[B]

Not in Mississippi.

[A]

That is the snappy lunch in Mount Airy, North Carolina.

[B]

And how is that one?

[A]

It's fantastic, right?

[B]

That one's more bread than meat.

[A]

It's more bread than meat. They actually take yesterday's biscuits, which become stale. Not really, actually, but they're not really moist anymore. And they crumble them up and throw them into the beef.

[B]

And describe the Slug Burger, which is more of a.

[A]

The slug burger is similar except a lot of people won't give up their recipes, so I've had to make it up my own. It's an interesting history.

[B]

Yours is beef only, though, because it's you. Even though it actually probably contains pork.

[A]

So today, if you get a slug Burger in the south today, it likely is neither beef and neither beef or breadcrumbs. It's pork and some kind of soy flour. So it's some kind of flowering, you know, extender that has nothing to do with. With, you know, with. With glutens or anything. I mean, it's. It's not. The original way it was made was ground beef and yesterday's bread, obviously. And today it's pork and pork and extenders like soy, fruit, flour.

[B]

And most of the slugs are fried, correct?

[A]

So most of them are, yeah. Today there are, but in the old days they were cooked on a flat top. So you can still go to certain places that will not call it a slug, but they will cook it on a flat top. It'll be beef and breadcrumbs, not the soy extension.

[B]

So here's one to talk where we're going to start talking now. Wet flat top or the dry flat top?

[A]

Well, the wet flat top is traditional and they still exist around the country. They're still out there. A lot of them have switched from.

[B]

Well, tell the folks what.

[A]

So there's a wet grill. A wet grill is literally a square or some kind of, you know, not round skillet that is set. That is actually set in usually some kind of a cooktop, but it has actual sides on it so that it's a tank so the actual grease can't escape. So the burgers are cooked in grease.

[B]

That's how I like do it at home, by the way.

[A]

It's a great way to do it. Yeah.

[B]

Like if you're a cast iron man, I like to. I know you don't put bacon on Your own burgers. But like, but I, I cook the bacon now. I have the bacon fat.

[A]

Yeah, it's good.

[B]

And so then always save it.

[A]

Always.

[B]

Wet cook. Yeah, I like a wet.

[A]

Wet is good. Wet's very important. But wet is traditional. It's very difficult. It's also dangerous as hell if you know what you're doing.

[B]

Who needs their eyes and hands?

[A]

See, in the old days, all these stands that were burger stands were made of like just found material and tent material and, and old wood. And they would cook in these tanks. The tanks would spill over and they'd burn the whole tent down, and that would be it. So at some point when burgers started to become brick and mortar, they found safer ways to make burgers, but they would actually have the grease would run off into a grease catch. And that's the. That's how we made smash burgers.

[B]

All right, so wait, so. So back to these slugs and snappies. Snappy burger. Slug burger fight.

[A]

Which one? Yeah, the slug for sure.

[B]

Slug.

[A]

Yeah. The ones that I've had in northern Mississippi have been the perfect ratio of beef to beef to bread.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Even.

[B]

Even beef to bread to bread. Beef to bread to bread.

[A]

Beef to bread to bread. Yes, exactly.

[B]

Yeah. Well, you compare the snappy lunch one, it's like more akin to a crab cake of beef.

[A]

Right, exactly. Which it tastes great. Sure, why not? But if I had to pick one, I'd probably go for the slug burger. A little more beef. Yeah.

[B]

Hey, could you make the snappy lunch one as a standalone grabbing device?

[A]

What do you mean grabbing?

[B]

Or like on a plate without a bun and all the accoutrement? Like a crab?

[A]

Yeah, you could definitely more of a croquette. Wow, that sounds. Sounds great. Yeah, I like that burger croquette.

[B]

Yeah. Okay, so wait, back to where we were going on wetness. Oh, no. On flour first. Where was the place where they make the patty and then they throw it into flour before they griddle it?

[A]

How about that, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's a place called the Triple X. Triple X in. Where is it? In Indiana.

[B]

And they're on a flat top, right?

[A]

It's on a flat top.

[B]

So how much a fond do they get? Do they have to scrape the hell out of their flat top all the time?

[A]

They probably do. From what I saw, it looked like a pretty well seasoned flat top and didn't have to do too much. But they definitely did hand patty these burgers and then throw them into like a thing of flour right next to the flat top and then throw it in the grill.

[B]

Sure. The health department loves that.

[A]

Oh, sure, they love it. What's happening is obviously the rendered fat is going into that flour and it's basically almost like a chicken fried steak in a way.

[B]

How is it?

[A]

It's fantastic.

[B]

So is this something that. See, this is the kind of thing. This is when I'm reading this book. That's what I'm looking for.

[C]

Good.

[B]

Okay. You know what I mean? Stuff where like. And I think our listeners are gonna be like, maybe I'll try that.

[A]

That you should try it. Yeah, absolutely.

[B]

But they're doing it on a super well seasoned. So it's basically, it's rendering its own grease. And also, here's something I think most people don't understand. Professionals. Some of these places have griddles and flat tops that are so old that they're not flat anymore. But a lot of these places, either they pitch their flat top on purpose so that the grease runs off, or if they want to keep it in one place, they can level it. A lot of home stoves aren't leveled properly.

[A]

They're absolutely not.

[B]

You know what I mean? Or if you want it tilted, they're not tilted the way you want. In other words, a home stove is often not what you want it to do.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You know what I mean?

[A]

That's why you should go, leave it to the professionals and come to Hamburger America.

[B]

Well, you should always go to. You should always go to Hamburger America. You definitely should always go to Hamburger America. Okay. Interestingly, we're gonna loose. Let's talk about marinade. There are two different marinated burgers in your book. One is fully cooked, thrown in a hot marinade, pulled directly from the marinade into. Onto the burger one where it's. It is cooked, marinated, cooked again. And then there are at least one and no, there are two at least fully dipped burgers in jus after they are made. So describe. Describe that. Like what? Like, is that a good thing? Do we want this in life?

[A]

Of course we want these things. Yes. Any kind of jus or marinade is great for burgers, for sure. I mean, it's not traditional, but it really does. And it's a flavor enhancer. Especially the one of them you're talking about is a place called Fat Moe's. And they do. It's like a 17 or 12 or 17 spice Persian spice marinade that really does impart a hell of a flavor.

[B]

Yeah. So the. Here's the issue I have on the one that's served in the marinade For a long time. I'm worried it's going to affect the texture of the meat. But if it's already been par. Cooked, it might not. I mean, none of these places, as far as I can tell, put like salt on the inside or acid on the inside of their meat for a long time before it's cooked. Because that's anathema.

[A]

Oh, yeah. No, you can't. Someone made a mistake years ago, probably, and that's what happened. Yeah, that's where they changed.

[B]

Yeah. All right. There's also a place that has an entire flat top where they put the meat on the flat top that's hot and then scoop the raw meat off the top and then put it on the burger. And then they. Because I saw a picture of it and then the bottom of it's. What do they do with the leftover?

[A]

I just. It's one of those. I don't know. I physically cannot. I physically. I can't figure out how they're doing it. I don't know how he does it, but you can see he's doing it. And he's also not using traditional tools. He's using an actual, actual travel, like a bricklayer's travel to do it.

[B]

Kinda crazy. So speaking of traditional, on the way out, the broilator. Did you get to see this broilator? Do I need to build one? Are they great? Do they make a fantastic burger?

[A]

They make a great burger, but it's almost like the toaster oven with a cast iron skillet inside of it. They're perfect.

[C]

All right.

[A]

I don't know why there's not more of them out there.

[B]

I'm going to have to research this. So listen, there's more to talk about. We haven't even talked about which, like 10 pounds of loose meat and it's like spread like a spider over the center of our country. But, you know, we'll have to have you on to talk. You did serve. Whose loose meat did you serve?

[A]

We just did Taylor's Maid Rite, which is in Marshalltown, Iowa.

[B]

But if you want to know more, you'll have to get the new version of Hamburger America by George Moats or visit him at Hamburger America. Don't bother him if he's too busy, but I'm sure he'll answer one or two questions. George, thanks for coming back on.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Come on, get your time. So much cooking issues.