The Naked Hamburger

for that after-amour snack, there's nothing tastier than –

Playboy's food & drink editor

Some fellows Spend too much time worrying about aphrodisiacs.

Everyone knows the type who won't take a girl to a restaurant unless he can engage a chambre separe'e fitted with midnight blue drapes, scented with white heliotrope and fogged with mists of Virile Night perfume. He is the type who worries about ordering oysters or crayfish. He asks the headwaiter to make him a salad of watercress and ginseng root, since both of these vegetables, he heard, are supposed to be effective sources of sexual stimulation. He quotes freely from books on Hindu love potions and New Orleans amatory foods. Finally he orders a chaise longue to be placed right alongside the dining table, hoping that as the meal progresses, the girl will be so aroused by the multitude of his subtle approaches that she will swoon directly from her eclair onto the chaise longue without even bothering to wipe the chocolate frosting from her lips.

The voluptuary who goes to all of these elaborate preparations usually finds that the glorious moment, in which he imagined his girl would melt like jello, turns out to be a bad mistake.Both he and the girl are so surfeited with soups and sauces that they can hardly move. They are heavy in the stomach, the head and the limbs, and panting not with passion but with incipient indigestion. He and the girl may eventually land on the chaise longue only to discover that too much amatory food and too many love potions are putting them to sleep.

It's all right to tempt a girl with food. You can excite her with the promise of oysters or fresh Beluga caviar. You can lure her with sherried lobster or ravish her with filet mignon. But any sensible man knows when to stop, since he also knows that love is a form of prolonged muscular exercise, and he won't enter the game with a self-imposed handicap.

He is properly concerned with what Playboy regards as the post-aphrodisiacphase.

When it's all over, what do you eat? Hours later when the doorman has fallen asleep and the lobby is deserted, when only a few lonely cabs can be heard cruising the empty streets, when she turns to make the final adjustment of her garter belt and both of you feel a kind of riotous hunger, there is only one manly thing to do – give her a hamburger. There are many sophisicated playboys who will never make a date without going immediately afterward to the butcher and ordering a pound of freshly ground top round and a half-dozen hamburger buns.

There's something so right-side-up about a grilled brown hamburger, some-thing so keen about its honest beef juice oozing into a split feathery bun, something so unpretentious about eating it that it just comes naturally as a wonderful postlude to an evening's orgy.

You can get a bad steak but seldom a really bad hamburger. You'd be committing a crime if you doused a club steak with catsup, and you'd be mad to put a slice of raw onion on a lamb chop. And yet a hamburger will take both the catsup and the onion and toss them down as charming bystanders.

It would be hard to find a food as easy going as a hamburger. Toothless Park Avenue tycoons who have given up struggling with their venison steaks find the chopped sirloin easy pickin's. Commuters amble along to the 5:14 train with a briefcase in one hand and a hamburger in the other. Truckdrivers free-wheeling on long hauls over the country swallow them by the bagful. For the kind of man who tackles his food as though he meant business but who nevertheless prefers to look into his angel's eyes instead of the dinner plate, the hamburger is indispensable.

Powder house fluffs who expect you to brush the seat before they sit down to eat mincingly will snub a hamburger. But girls who like to snuggle up in roadsters, who do not mind walking onto a sawdust floor, who like to sit at high bar stools and drink Munchner beer and who love rare meat cooked over char-coal will do the ground beefsteak justice.

For some time now, surveys of public eating places have shown that more hamburger is eaten than any other meat dish. The hamburger edges out the frankfurter comfortably. Its nearest rival is ham-and-eggs.

Hamburger is named after the German port of Hamburg where old sea dogs during the last century ate their scrambled T-bone raw, the dish now known in this country as cannibal or Tartar steak. The whole history of chopped meat patties is an account of how a simple dish – chopped meat – could be ruined by over-spicing, over-grinding, over-cooking and over-dressing. Hamburgers in ancient Rome, for in-stance (they called them Ostian meat balls), illustrate the point. The Latin writer Apicius tells how the Romans made them. "Clean, scrape and shape the meat. Crush pepper, lovage, cumin, caraway, silphium and one laurel berry moistened with broth. In a square dish,place the meat cakes and spices. Cover them crosswise with twigs. Pickle them for two or three days. Roast them. Mix the broth in the pan with crushed pep-per, lovage and raisin wine. Thicken the broth with a mixture of fat and flour." With hamburger recipes like this, it's easy to understand why Rome declined and fell flat on its face.

During the middle ages, hamburgers were made in a thousand varieties. Almost all beef as well as pork, mutton and chicken were chopped fine for the simple reason that forks were unknown and the knife was a kitchen utensil rather than a piece of tableware.

Undoubtedly, the modern hamburger owes a lot to Cornelius B. Paulding, who, in 1870, led a movement to eat without knives, forks or spoons. Pauld-ing wanted to junk all tableware claim-ing that if people ate with their fingers, the pioneer spirit that made America great could be recaptured. Paulding's movement never gathered momentum but the hamburger on the bun accomplished the same ends.

It took generations for cooks to dis-cover that the more unadorned the meat, the more natural is its goodness. The smartest hamburger heavens these days advertise the fact that their meat con-sists of only chopped prime beef and a little salt. In some hotels a little grated onion and perhaps some milk or cream are added to the meat. But the seasonings are conservative and never overpowering.

Strangely, in France, where simplicity and subtlety of flavors are almost wor-shipped, raw hamburger is so dressed up it seems like a hangover from Nero's days. Witness, for instance, the follow-ing recipe for something called Filet Americain from Maurice Sailland's La Table Et L'Amour. "You will need for each guest a fresh egg, a spoonful of onion chopped very fine, a taste of tarragon with some mint and parsley chopped even finer, some mustard, some (continued on page 40) Naked Hamburger (Continued from page 21) lemon juice and some chopped beef. Break the egg yolk into a plate. Mix it with some olive oil, beatint it until it begins to rise. While beating, add the onion, the herbs, the mustard, the lemon juice, the salt, pepper and finally the meat. Mix it all up and serve. Obviously this has a certain element of cannibalism which will frighten sensitive souls. But it is quite a pick-me-up." Someone should tell m. Sailland that there are two things which an American likes naked and one of them is hamburger.

Hamburgers parade under a lot of names. Cannibal or Tartar steaks are simply chopped raw beef. They are preferred by gents with ballon heads who have had too much to drink the night before and who think that the best way to restore the digestive tract is to give it the shock treatment with raw meat and onions. In roadside stands and other honest eating places, a hamburger is called a hamburger. In hotels it will assume such noms de plume as bitock of beef, meat patties, Salisbury steak, chopped tenderloin steak or chopped sirloin steak. But in any instance it is chopped beef shaped into a cake ranging in thickness from one-eighth inch to one full inch. It may weigh anywhere from an ounce to a full half pound before cooking.

You can buy two frankfurters that are alike. But seldom will two chefs turn out quite the same hamburgers. Chopped beef is a kind of magnifying mirror. Let the chef use chopped round instead of chopped chuck, let him add a little more onion or salt, prowl around ever so carefrully with a few grains or paprika or add an ounce or two more suet and the hamburger will reflect the difference immedietely. The net result, however, if the chef is a square shooter, must be succulent unadulterated beef flavor. Anything else is a fraud.

Any educated playboy who has cut his wisdom teeth should know something about meat when he sets about making a hamburger. Meat which has been pre-ground and is resting in the display cases should be avoided. It usually includes a large proportion of fat shown in the large number of white specks. It frequently includes such unsaleable odds and ends as beef hearts, scraps of veal and pork, stray kidneys, slightly mildewed flank steaks and other vagrants of the refrigerator.

The best rule is to buy your beef and have it ground to order or grind it yourself. Buy chuck of beef if you want it somewhat fatty. Buy round of beef if you preferit lean. Buy top sirloin for the finest beef flavor. To all lean meat an ounce or two of suet may be added per pound. Better still, ask the butcher to add an ounce or two of marrow taken from the skin of the beef.

While hamburger is our great nationhal speciality, the great national offense is grinding the meat so that it emerges with the consistency of mush. Tell the butcher to put the meat through a grinder with a medium blade one time. Grinding it twicce will often turn it into a paste or puree. In hotel kitchens, years ago, whtn the butcher had sufficient time, the meat was actually chopped with two cleavers until it was ready to be shaped into a hamburger. The playboy who attempts to make a hamburger should have a thorough orientation in the art of petting. Before chopped beef is made into a hamburger, it is mixed with seasonings and some times milk or cream. The chopped beef you are about to shape into a patty is sensitive. You shouldn't overmix it or it will become tight and tough. When you put it into a grudge battle with both mitts sluggish in every direction. You are touching flesh that should be cajoled lightly and lovingly until it is in the shape you want it to be. If you own an ice cream scoop, you should use it to divide the meat into equal portions. Other containers, such as glass sherbet dishes, may be used for dividing the meat into equal size servings.

A hamburger should be brought to the fire with the respect of a votary. If the flame is too hot, the outside will be seared too quickly while the inside is left raw. Too low a flame willl cause the meat to steam and the outside of the burger will be a grayish brown instead of a deep rich brown.

Thin hamburgers from 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness should be cooked on a griddle or frying pan. Thicker hamburgers from 1/2 inch thickness, known as hamburgers steaks, should be cooked under a broiler flame or in an infra-red broiler.

For playboys and playmates who like the modern simple-to-prepare hamburger, the following recipes should be useful.

[recipe_title]Hamburger Steak for two couples[/recipe_title]

1 lb. chopped beef

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

3 tablespoons light cream

1 teaspoon grated onion

4 Teaspoons butter

Put the meat into a mixing bowl. Carefully break the meat apart with the finger tips. Sprinkle the salt and pepper over the meat. And the cream and onion. Mix lightly until there is no pool of cream visible in the bowl. Do not overmix. Divide the meat into 4 portions. Shape each portion into a ball between the palms of the hands. Press gently to flatten into cakes 1/2 inch thick. Place the patties in the refrigerator to chill at least two hours. The cold burgers will be less inclined to break when they are put under the broiler flame Preheat the broiler flame at least 10 minutes. Brown the burgers on one side. Turn with a spatula and brown the second side. Put a teaspoon of butter on each hamburger just before serving.

Note: Burgers are rare inside when they feel springy or yield easily when lightly touched with the fingers or the back of a spoon. When they are medium done, they feel less resilient. When they are well done, they feel quite firm.

Serve hamburger steaks on toast. Pile the plates with French fried potatoes or warm potato chips.Catsup and sliced sweet Bermuda onions are de rigueur. Foamy dry beer should be served in tall Pilsener glasses. For sexual athletes, the pound of meat should be divided into two or three portions rather than four.

For hamburger sandwiches, divide a pound of meat into about six portions. Cook it on a griddle very lightly greased or on a heavy cast iron frying pan. Split the hamburger buns and toast them on the cut side only before serving.

Hamburger Variations

For a straight beef flavor, omit the onion or the cream or both. Add two or three tablespoons cold water, however, to keep the meat juicy.

For deviled hamburgers, add 1 teaspoon prepared mustard and 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce to meat before shaping into cakes.

For a piquant flavor, add 1 tablespoon catsup, 1 teaspoon horseradish sauce and 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley to meat before shaping into cakes.

For barbecued hamburgers, brush the meat generously with prepared barbecue sauce before and during broiling. Pass additional barbecue sauce at the table.

For cheeseburgers, place a slice of sharp American cheese on the browned side of the meat right after the meat has been turned on the griddle or frying pan. If the burgers are being broiled, brown both sides and then place a slice of cheese on top. Broil about two minutes more or until cheese begins to soften.