YEARS AGO I WAS UTTERLY despondent over the state of American cuisine. A diet frenzy gripped the nation. Supermarket aisles were chock-full of low-fat variants of all that was good and pure–namely, foods made with butter. But then the pendulum began to swing, thanks in part to the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins and his eponymous diet. Americans were again feasting on red meat, eggs, and other artery-hardeners. Even when restaurants added healthy dishes to their menus, as one fast-food rep explained to me, it was the least healthy items that sold the most.
Does this mean we’ve swung too far in the opposite direction? Have Americans become gluttons? I ask this after a visit last week to the local Burger King. Hoping to satisfy my hunger for a hearty breakfast, I was drawn to the Enormous Omelet Sandwich: bacon, egg, cheese, and sausage on a sesame seed bun. How bad could it be? Seven hundred and forty calories bad, it turns out.
I asked the manager if the Enormous Omelet Sandwich was popular. “Oh yes,” she said. “Surprisingly.”
A visit to Burger King’s website confirms this. Some 18 million Enormous Omelet Sandwiches have already been sold, though it’s been on the menu for less than a year–making its addition one of the most successful product launches in the history of the company. The local manager pointed out, however, that even more popular was the so-called Meat’normous Omelet Sandwich, consisting of three slices of bacon, two slices of ham, one sausage patty, two eggs, and two slices of cheese. Says one BK executive, “We didn’t hold anything back. It’s like an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet on a bun.”
Burger King is, of course, not the only fast food chain selling sandwiches to widen your waistline. Wendy’s Classic Triple Cheeseburger contains 970 calories. Hardee’s sells a Monster Thickburger (two patties, cheese, and bacon) that clocks in at over 1,400 calories. Not to mention saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium.
When I found myself in Bettendorf, Iowa, a few years ago, I stopped in at Ross’s Restaurant, home of the Magic Mountain: a massive pileup of hash browns, ground beef, fried eggs, and melted cheese served over toast in a bowl. Feeling bold, I ordered one of these mountains, and it was indeed magical, but not the highest peak. Braver souls are known to ascend what Ross’s calls the Mega Mountain, essentially a double serving of the Magic Mountain.
No surprise, this trend towards gluttony is alarming health experts, who claim we are already facing an obesity epidemic. They say two out of three adults as well as 37 percent of children are obese. We eat too much and drink too much. Yes, drink, as in the 7-Eleven X-Treme Gulp “mug,” which holds 1.5 liters.
Could we stand to exercise more and eat better? Absolutely. But are we really eating more than ever before? Not necessarily.
A.J. Liebling once wrote of the dining habits of his friend, the French playwright Yves Mirande, who, even into his seventies, “would dazzle his juniors . . . by dispatching a lunch of raw Bayonne ham and fresh figs, a hot sausage in crust, spindles of filleted pike in a rich rose sauce Nantua, a leg of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras, and four or five kinds of cheese, with a good bottle of Bordeaux and one of champagne.” Mirande died in 1957 at the ripe old age of 82.
In Gusto: Essential Writings in Nineteenth-Century Gastronomy, we learn from Alexandre Dumas that for Louis XVIII, “chops were not merely grilled. They were grilled between two other chops. The diner himself opened this marvellous censer, which poured forth its juices and most delicate perfumes. Ortolans stuffed with truffles were cooked in the stomachs of partridges, so that His Majesty sometimes hesitated for moments between the delicate bird and the perfumed vegetable.” Louis died in 1824 at 68 years of age–relatively old for his time.
Today’s restaurants are, however, wary of becoming infamous for their kingly servings. McDonald’s will soon begin printing nutritional facts on its sandwich wrappers. But will a hungry consumer be deterred upon reading that the Big Mac in his hands contains some 560 calories? Or will he simply be encouraged, knowing this is fewer than half the calories of Hardee’s Monster Thickburger?
There’s no denying we Americans like to eat, but no more than, say, Monsieur Mirande or the king of France. One benchmark we can use to confirm we’ve achieved true gluttony is this headline from The Onion: “Denny’s Introduces ‘Just A Humongous Bucket Of Eggs And Meat.'” Of course it’s a joke. No such item exists on Denny’s menu. In fact, it probably won’t be available until next year.
-Victorino Matus
