Hamburger America

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For my children, Ruby and Mac, and my wife,
Casey, who is no longer a vegetarian.

T
here is no delicate way to put this: George Motz is nuts.

Who in his right mind would spend years traveling the country, clogging his arteries, parting with his hard-earned money, and suffering culinary indignities and belt-busting insults, all in pursuit of the perfect burger, something even he admits might not exist?

I first met George when he came to Chicago to visit that subterranean tavern know as the Billy Goat. Being a New Yorker, he knew little of the legend of this venerable spot; I don’t think he realized that the
Saturday Night Live
“cheezborger, cheezborger” skits were inspired by this place and its shouting Greek “chefs”; and he’d never heard of Mike Royko and the other journalists who called the place home.

There have been, by my rough calculation, 4,540,762 burgers served at the Billy Goat since it opened on Hubbard Street in 1964, but none was more significant than the one grilled at 12:14 p.m. on April 19, 2003, and consumed seconds later by George.

The Goat’s burgers are griddled, but Motz has eaten them deep-fried, steamed, broiled, baked, and raw; eaten them on buns, rolls, and bread; eaten them plain and covered with butter, bacon, chili, peanut butter, pimentos, pastrami, and almost any other topping that can be concocted by a cook’s imagination and whatever might be lying around the kitchen.

He did this initially to create the film
Hamburger America
. The documentary gained a robust cult following. It made George proud but it did not make him stop. Rather, the film became the inspiration for and foundation of this book, for George’s search for the best hamburgers in the country.

The great television journalist Charles Kuralt once observed, “You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.” And George set out to prove him right.

What you hold in your hands is the labor of his travels—a gathering of meat, if you will, but also a celebration of burgers and the people who make them.