The Way We Live Now #14: Four Burgers a Year

In the past nine months, Spouse and I, together, have eaten about 34 beef hamburgers. When you divide that by nine, it doesn’t seem so high, until you realize that, pre-pandemic, our burger quotient was about four a year, total.

I’m emphasizing beef burgers here. I make turkey burgers once in a while and we have veggie burgers about once a week normally.

We don’t eat fast-food burgers. Generally, of our Olden Times 4-per-year burger was a restaurant burger, at a restaurant we knew made great burgers. And that wasn’t more than twice a year.

During the pandemic, though, in this particular area, we’ve drifted toward red meat consumption. Maybe it’s not a drift; maybe it’s racing up the on-ramp.

It started in mid-2020, with the idea that we would get take-out from our favorite local restaurants at least once a week, to help them stay afloat. (It also meant one day less of menu planning and cooking.) At first, as I recall, we were very good. I would order one burger, with no fries, and two side salads. We would split the burger. So virtuous. So community-minded. After a while, though, I started ordering two burgers. At first I’d eat half of mine and have the other half the next day for lunch or something ( or Spouse would.) And pretty soon, that wasn’t happening. Not only was I scarfing down my entire burger, but while I still ordered a side salad, I was also getting the fries.

I do think some of this came from a yearning for comfort. Burgers are comfort food. They also taste good. I think way too much of it is habit; it’s too easy.

Then at the grocery I found fancy Wagyu beef, conveniently packaged in exorbitant one-pound packs, and I started making burgers at home. The shared single burgers reduced our overall numbers–the decadent Wagyu burgers upped the numbers, and here we are at nearly forty in less than a year.

It’s spring now. Walks are beautiful. With the availability of vaccines, more things are opening up slightly, and I think it’s time we shifted our gratification to non-food things. Or different food things, at least. Vegetables are tender, sweet and fresh right now; maybe we can shift our focus to those.

As we head into the second quarter of 2021, I’m aiming us back at the old goal; between us both, four burgers a year.