How do you like your burger — deep-fried? Steamed? Topped with butter or chopped green chilies? Slathered with peanut butter?
When a review copy of a documentary film called "Hamburger America" came in the mail, I figured it would be something about the history of fast-food giants such as McDonald's and Burger King. But instead, the hourlong film focuses on eight small burger joints that have become local legends.
The film debuts on the Sundance Channel July 4 as part of a special documentary day. It's a fitting day to see how "independent" some independent owners can get. Here in Utah we have Hires Big H, Crown Burger, the Burger Bar in Roy, and even yesteryear's Dees, but they're tame compared to the quirky eateries shown in "Hamburger America."
Filmmaker George Motz searched for the ultimate burger. I'm not sure that he found it.
"Oh my joke!" my 14-year-old daughter, Amy, exclaimed when she saw the "butter burger" being made at Solly's Grille near Milwaukee. Every one of the quarter-pounders is topped with a dollop (it looked like about 1/4 cup) of butter. Not margarine, the owner pointed out, but real butter produced by Wisconsin's dairy cows.
By the time the burger had been half-eaten, the bottom part of the bun had disintegrated from the melted butter. All I could think was "Heart attack on a bun," although the film showed skinny geezers who had been coming there since 1936, in obviously good health.
Amy and I were similarly grossed out by the Guberburger, a patty topped with melted peanut butter, at the Wheel Inn Drive-in of Sedalia, Mo. One customer told how she and her husband came there when they were first dating 39 years ago, and they've been coming ever since.
Another caloric overkill was the deep-fried burger at Dyer's in Memphis. "It's all about the grease," said the owner proudly. "If you are watching your health at all, I would recommend going next door."
The restaurant has been deep-frying ground beef in the same skillet of grease for more than 90 years. They strain the grease daily but never throw it out. When Dyer's moved to its current address on Beale Street, the grease vats were moved with a police escort led by the mayor.
Ted's Restaurant in Meriden, Conn., steams its cheeseburgers in individual square tins and has been doing it that way since 1959. The owner claims it's more healthful than something seared on a grill, but the burger itself looked like an unappetizing gray blob on a bun.
The burger that looked the best to me was topped with chopped green chilies in Santa Fe's Bobcat Bite. Bobcats used to prowl the restaurant's roof — probably because they were lured by the former owners, who tossed their food scraps out the back door every night.
I'd also like to someday try the Meersburger, made from ultra-lean Texas longhorn beef in Meers, Okla.
Louis' Lunch, near Yale University in New Haven, Conn., claims to be the birthplace of the hamburger in 1900. Descendants of Louis Lassen have been using the same upright burger broilers and serve their burgers on toasted bread, not buns.
Then there's the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, made famous by John Belushi on "Saturday Night Live," where the menu says, "Cheezeborger, Cheezeborger," just as the staff pronounces it.
"Have it your way" is not an operating slogan at many of these places. It's more like "My way or the highway." At Louis' Lunch, ketchup isn't allowed. Customers at Dyer's can't have lettuce or tomato. Ask for mayo to go with a Meers longhorn burger, and the staff calls it a "sissyburger." Ask for ketchup, and it's called a "Yankee burger."
A fitting sign at Meers sums it up: "Eat beef. The West wasn't won on salad."
E-mail: vphillips@desnews.com