Just 10,000 More Calories to Heaven

Holy Mother of God.

“LEVEL ONE: A bun, grilled with cheese and bacon. It supports a 7 oz. cheeseburger, chicken fried bacon, chili cheese dog-burger, 7 oz. cheeseburger, and chicken-fried bacon.

LEVEL TWO: Grilled cheese with bacon, a 7 oz. cheeseburger, chicken fried bacon, chili cheese dog-burger, 7 oz. cheeseburger, and chicken-fried bacon.

LEVEL THREE: Grilled cheese with bacon, a fried egg, cooked to order, topped with onion rings and garnished – no, crowned – with Faribault Creamery cheese curds.”

Calories: Approximately 10,000. Cost: “$25, not counting medical care. By the way, we are not liable for injury,” warned Emerson. “You WILL be asked to sign a waiver” (see below).

This is all from Burger Jones, a Minneapolis burger bar seeking a bit of online attention. Well, after that photo I’m happy to give it to them. While some might find this burger to be an example of American consumptive extravagance, I see it more as a conceptual art piece designed to lay bare the fattiest contents of our diet without judgment. If you eat this in one sitting, you could die. But how many sittings would it take to eat it normal portions? Probably only a couple dozen. There’s something more here than a humorous, “fuck-you organic hippies!” sentiment. People are eating this every day, piece by piece, and we still don’t really know whether to celebrate or despite it, even though greasy foods are a center of our cultural experience. The war on saturated fat hasn’t lowered heart disease, and the war on obesity hasn’t made Americans skinnier. So do we need to do more, or sit back and enjoy our caloric arts?

Quality Fast Food: Original Seafood Restaurant, Dennis Port, Cape Cod, MA

When I walk into a counter-service fast food restaurant and I see the “Lobster Bomb” listed on the menu, I know I’ve walked into the right place. The unoriginally named Original Seafood Restaurant offers this explosive 1-pound lobster roll for the completely reasonable sum of $25, as it is more than enough crustacean for two people, especially when it’s accompanied by soft, hot, salty fries.

The lobster itself comes in massive red chunks, bathed but not drowned in a coat of mayo. The whole pile tastes so fresh that you could swear it was the fruit of some sort of magical lobster plant, grown and picked in the garden that day. Even if you opt for the more reasonable $13.99 lobster roll and fries, you will get a satisfying heap of tender meat. And of course, since it’s New England, all rolls are served in those controversial “Top Loader” hot dog buns. Perhaps, after years of failing to support my relish-laden Fenway Franks, these rolls have finally found a purpose in hosting light lumps of lobster and lettuce.

Unable to try just one thing, we also got a basket of fried clam strips, which were remarkable for their lack of grease. Instead, they were tender inside and out, from the creamy batter to the friendly and forthcoming meat inside.

The only item that received mixed reviews was the chowder, which tasted more like a hearty potato soup with clam chunks in it. But what it lacked in authenticity it made up for in scarfability, especially at $2.99 for a rather generous “small” bowl.

So, when you’re in the mid-cape area and can’t defend going to Sundae School for dinner a third night in a row, don’t try and be unique: follow the crowds to the Original Seafood Restaurant. Perhaps you will be bold enough to order the 8-person “Seafood Frenzy” listed ominously at the bottom of their menu…

“[T]he real tyrant is a man who sacrifices a whole nation to his ideal”

The NYTimes goes in-depth about what Mayor Bloomberg’s obsession with his own weight has done to the mind of the city.

Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to “shake the habit” by asking waiters for food without added salt.

But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel “that it’s like a pretzel,” said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house.

Not even pizza is spared a coat of sodium. When the mayor sat down to eat a slice at Denino’s Pizzeria Tavern on Staten Island recently, this reporter spotted him applying six dashes of salt to it.

A health tip sheet from the mayor’s office tells New Yorkers to “drink smart” by choosing water, even though Mr. Bloomberg has a three- to four-cup-a-day coffee habit.

“I can count on two hands the number of times I have seen him drink water,” said one dining companion, who spoke on condition of anonymity, so as not to offend the mayor (who likes his coffee weak, and with milk).

It’s a slippery slope:
Calorie Counts on menus? Excellent.
Telling people what they can eat? Pretty Scary.
Ads on subways making people feel horrible about their body first thing in the morning? Just plain cruel.

For a totally alternate take on fat and body image, one that would make Mayor Bloomberg gasp, check out:
America’s Moral Panic Over Obesity

(The subject line quote is spoken by Caligula in Camus’s play of the same name)

A New Record for World’s Largest Meatball

It may be a publicity stunt, but it sure is one spicy meatball. When I see it, my only instinct is to pick the metaball up (if I could lift a 110 pound meatball) and throw it at the first person I can find wearing a tux.

CANCÚN, Mexico — To promote their upcoming film “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”, Sony Pictures asked the chefs at The Ritz Carlton to cook a 109 lbs (49.5 kg) meatball-setting the world record for the largest meatball.
after the record for the largest meatball was confirmed, the meatball was cut up into normal-sized portions and served to everyone at the record-setting event.
The Hotel’s Executive chef Rainer Zinngrebe along with banquet chef Aldo Novoa accomplished the appetizing feat, surpassing a previous Guinness world record for the largest meatball set in 2008 that stood at 32.93 kg, or 72 lbs., 9 oz.

Story from World Records Academy. More pictures here. Note that no one mentions what type of meat was actually used…

Dream Wedding

Yeah, I could totally see myself doing this.

EuroChomp SausageFest 2009: Knödelsuppe

And here is the crown glory of my adventures in euromeatland: Knödelsuppe, a ball of the most mouth-watering, soft, succulent meatloaf you’ve ever tasted floating in a buttery broth of spicy goodness. The meat itself, who cares what was in it? It tasted like someone had rubbed your favorite roast in just the right amount of lard and butter and then grinded it up before cooking it in a pot of boiling broth. I have to admit, I don’t remember it too precisely, because I was so consumed by consuming it that my memory is a bit hazy. But as they say back home: it was real good.

We ate this wonder at the biergarten in the Viktualienmarkt, Munich’s outdoor meat and produce market. It’s an absolutely fabulous place to eat on a spring or summer night, and it attracts a nice mix of locals that gives you a fine and friendly view of the people of Munich. Sit at one of the tables WITH a table cloth if you want wench service; otherwise you have to navigate the separate beer and meat stands yourself.

EuroChomp SausageFest 2009: Leberkäse

Leberkäse literally means “Liver Cheese,” although it contains neither liver nor cheese. Instead, it contains delicious: corned beef, bacon, onion and spices finely ground, then baked as a meat loaf. Then served alongside copious beer and mustard, as though you needed anything to speed passage of this deliciousness from the table to your belly.

Here, my friends, is the pure elemental form of bologna, the way the gods ate it on Olympus before the devil Oscar Meyer stole it from them and brought it down to us filthy humans. Come to the south of Germany or Austria and try some before the realize we’re not worthy.

EuroChomp SausageFest 2009: Schweinshaxe

At the Hofbräuhaus – the American Embassy in Munich – my companion and I both purchased a hearty plate of Schweinshaxe, roast pork knuckle. It’s basically the rotisserie chicken of pigs. Think of the juicy, delicate meat in a rotisserie chicken, then add the salty goodness of pork, and you can see why we ate these down to the bone. We even neglected our massive steins of dunkel for a few minutes to do so. In Bavaria, the pork knuckle is always cooked “knusprig” – crispy. And indeed the skin was flaky and crisp, a thin barricade between me and the tender pork awaiting within.

Other parts of germany call this cut of meat Eisbein, but that usually refers to a more boring, traditional roast that resembles a deformed pork loin. Go Schweinshaxe or go home, is what I say.

EuroChomp SausageFest 2009: Maxi Doner, the Pork Sundae of Munich

Doner is a Turkish specialty, and since Germany has a lot of Turkish communities, it is now a German specialty as well, so much so that while in Italy later in the trip, we found Doner signs in German. Normally, ordering straight up “doner” (just say that one magic word) will get you a pita or gyro-wrap filled to the brim with shaved lamb meat, tomato, lettuce or cabbage, and yogurt sauce. But at one magical Munich doner hut, blissfully open late after many pints of dunkel, Doner was taken to the next level. For there, on the sign, was the Maxi Doner.

It was, quite simply, the pork sundae of the continent. Atop a layer of shaved doner chicken lay fresh-fried greasy fries, doused in garlicky yogurt goodness. It’s great food for the well-lubricated mind: greasy, hot, meaty and easy to eat and transport. Mushing all three primary ingredients together created the perfect blend of potato grease, grilled meat grease, and yogurt grease, ready to do battle with whatever you’ve drank that evening. So even though we’d eaten dinner 3 hours ago, and some spaghetti ice two hours ago, we both finished our Maxi’s without a second thought.

If someone were to open up a stand selling these next to a state school football stadium, they would become millionaires in a fortnight.

EuroChomp SausageFest 2009: Wollwürste

Munich’s first wheat beer was brewed at the appropriately named Weisses Bräuhaus. A frequent meeting spot for politicians, including the National Socialists in the run up to WWII, it was heavily damaged by allied bombing But now restored, it still serves up plenty of pilsner and home-brewed weissbrau (both pictured), along with hefty amounts of meat. After a long day inspecting mining equipment and zeppelins at the Deutschmuseum, we stopped in for one of Munich’s many specialties, the wollwürste.

Bud Light and Blue Moon, you are not worthy.

Not sure exactly how wollwürste translates; most of the information on the web seems to be in german. I found one decent page of information here. From what I can gather, it’s typical Munichen Weisswurst that’s cooked in a particular way (dipped in milk, fried briefly) to give it a very fresh flavor. In the case of the ones we basically absorbed along with our beers, the taste was noticeably fruity, and the texture was incredibly moist. In short, a perfect, light sausage for eating lunch outdoors. I guess there’s a reason everyone else around us was eating them too. As usual the potato salad and spicy mustard complimented them well, as did the sea of meat juice encompassing it all.