Course Catalogue · Lesson No. III
CUL 301 · Department of Culinary ArtsHow to Eat a Hamburger
An advanced study of a tall, unstable and unforgiving meal, including grip, orientation, the bite, and the melancholy of the empty plate. Prerequisite BRD 101, Bread, Untoasted.
Film Forthcoming
The lesson is in post-production. The Faculty asks for your patience.
Few meals have been so widely attempted, and so rarely understood. The hamburger is tall. It is unstable. And it does not forgive.
CUL 301 is the Institute's first advanced course, and the Faculty does not recommend it to students who have not first made their peace with untoasted bread. The lesson proceeds in fifteen careful steps, from the locating of the specimen to the contemplation of the empty plate, and the student is asked to approach each one properly.
The Institute accepts no responsibility for the moustache.
Step I. Locate a hamburger.
Here, our subject has found one sheltering in a paper bag, as they so often do. Remarkable creatures.
Step II. Place the hamburger on a plate.
A hamburger, you see, must never be studied in the wild.
Step III. Sit down in front of the hamburger.
Eye level. Respectful. He does not, under any circumstances, rush.
Step IV. Examine the hamburger carefully.
Lettuce. Tomato. Cheese. The patty itself. All present, and all accounted for.
Step V. Identify the top and bottom buns.
They look remarkably alike. Many a promising young scholar has eaten a hamburger upside down, and never quite recovered.
Step VI. Position both hands on opposite sides.
Left, and right. A balanced approach, both literally and philosophically.
Step VII. Grip the hamburger firmly, but do not crush it.
Too gentle, and it escapes. Too firm, and the ketchup makes its bid for freedom.
Step VIII. Lift the hamburger off the plate.
Observe the crumbs left behind, the first casualties of the afternoon.
Step IX. Rotate the hamburger until it faces your mouth.
The hamburger does have a front, you know. It is simply too polite to mention it.
Step X. Open your mouth as wide as comfortably possible.
Comfortably. This is a lesson, not a contest.
Step XI. Move the hamburger toward your mouth.
The moustache, regrettably, will be involved. It always is.
Step XII. Take a bite. Initial contact established.
Somewhere, a great many scientists are quietly applauding.
Step XIII. Pull the hamburger away and chew thoroughly.
Thirty times, if one is a stickler. Our subject is not.
Step XIV. Swallow, drink some water, then repeat steps X to XIII until gone.
The cycle repeats, bite after bite, until, at last, nothing remains.
Step XV. Examine your empty plate and celebrate.
And yet, there is a certain sadness. For every hamburger, however magnificent, must one day come to an end.