Burgers with a secret inside

Hamburgers may seem a might improper to be promoting during Lent. Well, Sundays are for celebration, even during this most penitent of seasons. And if you want to celebrate with a hamburger, you might as well try these. I used local, grass-fed ground beef because I have lost all faith in meat processors' ability to keep E. coli out of their products and I think local farmers deserve our support. And I love the taste.

Lori K's fancy burgers 
Serves 4
© 2012, Lori Korleski Richardson
Ingredients
1 cup shredded Gouda cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
1 pound ground beef or veal
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions
Mix cheese and shallots in a medium bowl. Gently mix meat, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper in another bowl.
Divide veal mixture into 8 equal portions. Form 4 patties 1/8-inch thick. Place 1/4 cup cheese mixture atop each patty; form 4 more patties and top the first ones. Seal at edges to enclose cheese mixture. Grill burgers and cook about 5 minutes per side.
Serve on toasted buns or as part of a meal. We had a half-plate of salad with yellow bell peppers, avocado, grape tomatoes, pistachios and pomegranate seeds, and a scoop of mashed potatoes.

Taco Bell rings in India

When I saw the item that Taco Bell had opened its first store in Bangalore earlier this month, I was wondering how a chain so dependent on ground beef was going to be able to make it in India, where cows are revered, not eaten.

But according to their press release, half of the menu at the Bangalore Taco Bell consists of vegetarian products crafted specially for Indian consumers. Items include crunchy potato tacos and burritos made with potatoes and paneer, a fresh, unripened cheese used to add protein to a wide range of Indian foods. The remainder of the menu is composed of spicier versions of Taco Bell’s signature foods, such as nachos, quesadillas and Crunchwraps.

I quit eating at Taco Bell shortly after working there in the late '70s, disgusted with having to ladle meat from the pans of ground beef swimming in grease into tacos, then topping them with a cheese-like product.

Heck, with options like the ones to be offered in India, I might reconsider my aversion.

Beef products aren't beef

Americans love hamburger. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of eating out in the backyard, my dad making special cheeseburgers (two VERY thin patties with a slice of sharp cheddar cheese pressed between them and the edges sealed), with buns toasted to perfection on the grill, smeared with bright yellow mustard and maybe a dab of ketchup, a big beefsteak tomato slice and a fresh, crisp green lettuce leaf. All the major food groups, held in a package that even kid hands could handle.

Yet as the horror stories of E. coli have grown in the past several years, I've basically avoided commercially made hamburgers, preferring to buy local grass-fed beef and grind it myself (the food processor can do the job, if you don't mind the uneven chunks, which I kind of like). And even then, beef isn't on the menu very often.

So it was with a detached squeamishness that I read today's excellent New York Times story headlined, "Company's Record on Beef Treatment Questioned." To think of all that effort to eradicate problems that come up with processing, when for years just following common sense and sanitary practices were enough, just boggles the mind as it turns the stomach. And the company, while turning down the Times' request for interviews or tours of its facilities, sounded rather cavalier in its response:

“B.P.I.’s track record demonstrates the progress B.P.I. has made compared to the industry norm,” the company said. “Like any responsible member of the meat industry, we are not perfect.”

But it was this line that stopped me in my tracks:

The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

Yes, adults can make the choice not to eat at McDonald's or Burger King and the other restaurants that rely on Beef Products Inc.'s ammonia-treated ground beef parts, but what choice do those children have? To eat or not eat? To go hungry and not be able to focus on the afternoon's assignments?

And yet despite their record of repeated contamination, which indicated the ammonia treatment isn't consistent at best, the officials of Beef Products Inc. are free to run their business as they see fit.

I have just one word for the practice: Criminal. And no amount of weasel-talk can make our food safer, just action on the part of the government we trust with our health.