1.

A veggie burger manifesto for our modern times, tastes

It's almost easier to define the modern veggie burger by what it isn't, rather than what it
is.
A veggie burger is not, for instance, a proteinless vessel comprising typical burger fare
(lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions) built between two buns and melded together with a
consolatory slice of American cheese. That's a sandwich, not a burger. And respectable
burger joints that know better rightfully refer to it as such.
Nor is a veggie burger born by substituting a meat patty with a pseudo-exotic vegetable
sliced into a half-inch disc. Many otherwise savvy places get away with this tactic,
including Patty Burger (eggplant), M Burger (beefsteak tomato), et al. (portobello
mushrooms galore). Yes, those are literal veggie burgers: vegetables accompanied by
burger accouterments assembled on a bun. But flavor-wise, they're redundant. Does
anyone honestly desire to sink his or her teeth into a "burger" whose dominant flavor is
a giant rubber tire of a fungus?
The list of veggie burger faux pas is long. Among the worst offenders: turkey burgers (a
turkey is not a vegetable), salmon burgers (ditto), tofu burgers (just plain wrong). The
most controversial? Black bean burgers. Black beans long to be liberated, free to swim
in chili, soup and dips not mushed together into a claustrophobic pancake smothered
with ketchup and mustard, only to fall apart at the first opportunity. Whoever thought the
black bean burger was a good idea was probably a meat eater. (One exception made
our list.)
Eliminate the impersonators and you're left with only the true entries deserving of the
veggie burger title: traditional burger architecture (buns, ingredients, condiments)
showing off a non-meat patty comprising a balanced combination of vegetables, grains
and/or texturized vegetable protein.
That's it.
Thanks to those chefs who strive toward deliciousness within the aforementioned
parameters, the veggie burger is no longer limited to consumption by vegetarians.
Conversely, it is no longer acceptable to offer a veggie burger on a menu boasting a
chef by name, only to plate a defrosted Gardenburger (or worse, Boca burger).
The best veggie burger, like the best hamburger, should inspire in its maker a desire to
create an entree worth salivating over, one that requires two hands and several napkins
to conquer, no matter the dietary preferences of its consumer. Until all burger-makers
are on board with this manifesto, our work isn't done.
June 30, 2011|By Lauren Viera, Tribune reporter

2. The Burger Lab: Revisiting the Myth of The 12-Year Old McDonald's Burger That
Just Won't Rot
A few weeks back, I started an experiment designed to prove or disprove whether or not
the magic, non-decomposing McDonald's hamburgers that have been making their way
around the internet are indeed worthy of disgust or even interest.
The problem with coming to that conclusion, of course, is that if you are a believer in
science (and I certainly hope you are!), in order to make a conclusion, you must first
start with a few observable premises as a starting point with which you form a theorem,
followed by a reasonably rigorous experiment with controls built in place to verify the
validity of that theorem.
Thus far, I haven't located a single source that treats this McDonald's hamburger
phenomenon in this fashion. Instead, most rely on speculation, specious reasoning, and
downright obtuseness to arrive at the conclusion that a McDonald's burger "is a
chemical food[, with] absolutely no nutrition."
As I said before, that kind of conclusion is both sensationalistic and specious, and has
no place in any of the respectable academic circles which A Hamburger Today would
like to consider itself an upstanding member of.
Theres a strong evidence that burger doesn't rot because it's small size and relatively
large surface area help it to lose moisture very fast. Without moisture, there's no mold or
bacterial growth. Of course, that the meat is pretty much sterile to begin with due to the
high cooking temperature helps things along as well. It's not really surprising. Humans
have known about this phenomenon for thousands of years. After all, how do you think
beef jerky is made?

Now don't get me wrongI don't have a dog in this fight either way. I really couldn't care
less whether or not the McDonald's burger rotted or didn't. I don't often eat their burgers,
and will continue to not often eat their burgers. My problem is not with McDonald's. My
problem is with bad science.
For all of you McDonald's haters out there: Don't worry. There are still plenty of reasons
to dislike the company! But for now, I hope you'll have it my way and put aside your beef
with their beef.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR J. Kenji Lpez-Alt
3. Test tube meat is here to save the world!
"In October we are going to provide a proof of concept showing out of stem cells
we can make a product that looks, feels and hopefully tastes like meat," says
Mark Post at the announcement . Of course, what does processed meat actually
taste like anyway? MSG, sodium nitrite and processed salt, for the most part. So
making lab-grown meat taste like today's factory-processed meat only requires
the injection of a few additives into the growth culture. Imagine growing meat
patties with MSG inside every cell!
Creating one hamburger will require 3,000 strips of meat, each just half a
millimeter thick and grown in laboratory vats. Unlike a cow, which requires
roughly two years to grow to the point of slaughter, a test tube burger can be
produced in just six weeks.
The "benefits" of test tube hamburger production are being touted as substantial,
including:
More efficient conversion of plants to meat.
Less environmental damage.
More humane than killing animals.
Is the only feasible way to feed more meat to the world.
Of course, they also said that GMOs would "feed the world." Bill Gates calls
genetically modified foods "high-tech agriculture" now, with the strong implication
that technology is always superior to Mother Nature But I'm not so sure about
that. In fact, this whole thing sounds more than a little creepy to
mehttp://www.naturalnews.com/035020_artificial_meat_test_tube_hamburger.ht
ml#ixzz3V5dTnyxu

4. Oxford Organic Burger Company

While abroad, especially for a long time, sometimes we crave a little taste of home. For
many Americansamong whom I guiltily include myselfthis nostalgic morsel is found
at McDonald's, where American pie tastes more like a cheeseburger meal with fries and
a soda.
For those of us who crave some comfort while still seeking to partake in the English
culinary gastropub tradition, there's the recently opened Oxford Organic Burger
Company. In colonial literature, Britain is often portrayed as the woman, with her
masculine colonies bravely providing for her. England and America again find this
symbiotic marriage at this Cowley Road burger joint. America provides the inspiration
for the flat, California-style patties, and the sides of fries (included with the burger) and
green salad. Other American mainstays rarely found in England make their
appearances: coleslaw, tuna melt, and banana split. There is also a concerted
investment in ambiance, which evokes a sort of picnic-with-the-animals-by-tree-stumps
chichard to come by outside of London.
But I don't think the Oxford Organic Burger Company would be particularly pleased if I
called them an American establishment, primarily because they painfully stress that all
their quarter-pound beef patties come from cows raised organically in surrounding
Oxfordshire. Their buns are baked down the road. Even their brie is English. I concede
the point and order the Oxford Blue Burger, topped with melting blue cheese and the
very English burger condiment of tomato relish. Most of us don't realize that the term
"varsity blues" originates from the fact that the varsity teams of Oxford and Cambridge,
which is the team that plays the other university, both wear blue (dark and light
respectively). Thus, the etymology of the Oxford blue burger.
The beef tastes familiarly soft and charred. The cheese is a spicy blue sharp. The chips
are crisp to the bite, and fluffy and steaming within. To complete my experience, I order
an all-American shake. It comes glassy with ice and fresh raspberriesactually an

improvement on the American tradition. Turns out, we do speak the same language
after allwe just have a slight difference in accent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kerry Saretsky
5. The old reputation of these meatless patties: Yes, they're virtuous (only about
100 calories each and 10 grams lower in fat than even lean-meat burgers), but
they taste like coasters made of rubbery soy. Times have changed. So we asked
21 GH staffers both vegetarians and carnivores to taste 16 veggie burgers
from 11 nationally available brands. (We skipped all ethnic variations.)
The patties fell into two categories: soy-based burgers and the newer, fiber-rich
grain- and vegetable-based burgers. Except for two instances in which the food
companies recommend oven baking, we cooked all the entries on a grill pan with a little
vegetable cooking spray. We know that you'll probably serve your veggie burgers in
buns with condiments, but our tasters sampled the patties plain for a true comparison of
flavor and texture. Here's how they stacked up.
The clear winner here was Boca Meatless Burgers, All American Flame Grilled.
While some volunteers were bothered by their somewhat spongy, chewy texture (that's
soy protein for you), overall our panel found these patties flavorful and moist with a
pleasant hint of smokiness. One taster said it was "reminiscent of a real grilled burger."
Serve this classic-style with lettuce and tomato and onion slices.
Our samplers ate up the true veggie flavor and freshness of MorningStar Farms
Garden Veggie Patties. Tasters liked their moistness and chunky texture. "You can
actually see the vegetables!" exclaimed one tester. For a naturally sweet and delicious
burger that actually tastes of the mushrooms, peppers, onions, and carrots it was made
with, grab a box of these. Try a spoonful of salsa or chutney on top.
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-products/a17534/veggie-burger-taste-test0907/