Do You Want One of These

????

The Press and Chronicle seem to try to outdo each other with pictures of over-stuffed stacked burgers that an ordinary person can hardly be expected to get their hands around to pick up much less get their mouth open wide enough to take a bite. I thought I'd join the fad.

The humble burger is the subject of quite a food fad these days; there was a special segment devoted to it on Nightline on ABC this past week and celebrity chefs have been coming to market with their versions, even before the tanking of the economy made the comfort food appeal of a burger so relevant.

I usually take a Bah, humbug! approach to food fads and I much prefer a stick-to-the-basics burger, but I must admit that looks pretty awesome. The pictured burger is from a very small chain called The Counter which bills itself as offering Custom Built Burgers. Here's a comment on a New England blog; I love how the blogger describes the ordering experience as a science experiment.

But is it a burger? I have a little thing about maintaining the integrity of culinary terminology and I don't think that should be called a hamburger. Maybe Open-faced Hamburger steak sandwich???? Or maybe it's nothing but a photo-op burger, put together more with an eye to how it will photograph than how it functions as a sandwich.

But I think I want one.