In view of the current horsemeat scandal I thought I'd tell you all why I am proud of only ever having one beef burger.
I never ever had a burger as a child.
Was I deprived? Very. But I was not deprived as a result of not having burgers: we couldn't afford to eat in the new-fangled Wimpy restaurants. If Mom and I went into the Wimpy bar on New Street we could only afford a coffee, which tasted nothing like any coffee I'd ever had and was, frankly, revolting.
Mom never cooked burgers at home. Why should she? They were American imports and she learnt to cook during wartime. Yanks were "oversexed, overpaid and over here" and I grew up with a loathing of all things American. I later discovered this stemmed from Joseph Kennedy's refusal to support us in World War 2 until money was on the table. We didn't have much made from raw minced meat either. Cottage or Shepherds Pie were made properly, from minced leftover roast beef or lamb respectively. I think this was because Dad had a reasonable idea of what got minced and wasn't going to eat a cow's doodah!
So when I left home, I decided I was going to make myself a beefburger and see what all the fuss was about. Off I went to the butcher's and got a quarter pounder. I dutifully grilled it.
It shrunk.
All sorts of pinky gunk ooozed from it.
The finished burger measured about 2 inches by 1.5 inch by a quarter inch.
I was disgusted!
The next day I took this object to Trading Standards, which was opposite the Market. She patiently explained to me that this is what burgers did; they would never actually look like the pictures on the Wimpy menu, not even the Wimpy burgers looked like that, and it probably had worse cuts of offal in it than the faggots on sale at the chippy did.
Oh the shattered illusions of youth...
