Burger Lover's Day

Andera Olofsson / Pixabay.com / 2013 / CC0 1.0

The 15th of February is Burger Lover’s Day — and no one quite knows why…

Some people say that it was on this date in February in 1921 that White Castle opened its first hamburger restaurant in Wichita, Kansas, USA. However, that was actually in May 1921 (though White Castle has lost track over the years of the exact date in May); and so consequently White Castle sponsors National Burger Month in May.

In any event, while our southern cousins in Australia and New Zealand are basking on their beaches, February in the Northern Hemisphere is pretty dreary with its drizzling rain or driving snow. At this time of the year, a hamburger is a welcome break: a food reminder that sunny summer days and easy eating outside, while not quite around the corner yet, is on its way.

If you have a grill (aka barbeque in the UK) in a sheltered place, you can fire it up and do your burgers over the flames for a real taste of summer. Many commercial hamburgers, though, are cooked by frying — witness the White Castle or McDonald’s style, and if they can do it, why can’t you?

So, hunt down some hamburger patties at the store, or whip up your own. Read our “recipe” for hamburger patties, which is not so much a recipe as a series of tips, because it turns out you don’t actually need a recipe, just the tips to produce fabulous hamburger patties.

Then hunt down some hamburger buns, get some fixings and a side salad, and have a burger feed like it’s summer already — because if you’re a burger lover, it’s already been too long!

If you’ve never used an instant read thermometer to test the doneness of your hamburger patties, today could be a good day to give it a go for the first time. These thermometers are very inexpensive now, and assure food safety. Colour is not a reliable indicator of doneness. They also allow optimum quality: they prevent many a dried, grey, tough hamburger patty that was overcooked out of an abundance of caution.

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