To purists, the hamburger you can find at your local fast-food drive-through window is hardly worthy of the title. Real hamburgers, they say, are pressed into patties by hand and cooked over the open flame of a grill on the back porch.

It’s hard to argue the point. Americans eat billions of machine-made, fast-food patties every year and still call them “hamburgers,” but there’s hardly a Yankee Doodle, dandy or otherwise, who can’t recall some Independence Day celebration (or 10) in which the family didn’t eat burgers cooked in the backyard over charcoal or gas. Those are the burgers that real memories are made of.

In his 2008 book “The Hamburger: A History,” Josh Ozersky describes (with tongue somewhat in cheek) the cultural significance of the hamburger in America:

“Even before the hamburger became a universal signifier of imperialism abroad and unwholesomeness at home, it had a special semiotic power — a quality not shared even by other great American sandwiches like the hot dog, the patty melt, the Dagwood, the Reuben, the po’boy or even such totemic standards as fried chicken and apple pie. At the end of the day, nothing says America like a hamburger.”

Grills around the nation today will be steaming with the aromatic vapor of millions of burgers prepared in almost as many different ways.

Here’s one suggestion:

 

Bacon Double Cheese Stuffed Burgers

This bacon cheeseburger has the bacon and cheese stuffed inside the patty. Yum!

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

 Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 large onion diced
• 1/4 pound chopped, crisp cooked bacon
• 1/2 teaspoon Spike (or seasoned salt)
• 2 tablespoon beer

 Preparation:

Combine bacon, onion, cheddar cheese and set aside. Combine beef, spike and beer, mix thoroughly and then shape into six thin patties. Put bacon/onion/cheese mixture onto three patties. Top with remaining patties and press edges to seal. Grill, broil or pan fry until well done, about four minutes per side.

Makes three big burgers

Source:About.com