Like architecture, there is a critical toppling point in the tower of slippery condiments, melted cheese and greasy beef patties that make up the multi-story hamburger. But line cooks, unlike architects, have done little to study the physics and gravitational pulls that cause the more arterially apocalyptic hamburger to collapse. Their proffered solutions? The impotent thrust of a tooth pick, and little more.
Concept designers to the rescue. This attractive hamburger holder is, in fact, not much more than a fancified vice for a bacon double, its stock attractively carved from finely sanded wood. But with the addition of a tiny napkin diaper on the back to scoop up pushed out burger tricklings, this does seem like a neat solution to the problem of burger disintegration, at least until McDonald’s U starts up its major for Gastronomic Engineering. I may fashion my own prototype with a couple of large paper clamps.
Unitasker!
I’ve got a jillion ideas like this one:
1) cardboard fast food burger box that’s perfed so it can be progressively peeled back to expose burger while containing it.
2) envelope style heavy duty napkin to wrap burger.
3) edible nori burger wrap.
4) mistletoe belt buckle. Oops. Eleven months early on that one.
BurgerFuel, a New Zealand burger chain, has these made out of cardboard that you slot together. They are awesome for not getting burger all over your hands.
Or you can practice topping moderation. I’ve learned my lesson and skip the Sauted mushrooms. Also there is no shame in finishing your burger with a fork.
Skip…mushrooms? NEVER!!!!
Hey O_P… Watch me pull a Takuan outta my hat!
“Again?”
Nothin’ up my sleeve… Presto!:
http://failblog.org/2008/11/06/burger-fail/
If Ray Kroc had hired Charles and Ray Eames…
Imagine what would happen if they figured out how to mass produced these cheaply out of #7 plastic and McDonald’s starts using them…
That’s one of the reasons I prefer french bread over a sad burger bun to prepare my sandwich-like delikatessens
Also, that thingy is not for lefties.
Re #16
“A good burger is very far from pseudo food.
Unless you consider vegetables, bread, and meat to be pseudo food. (Or, in my case, veggies, bread, and a soy protein patty.)”
I don’t consider a bun filled with soy protein patty instead of meat a burger. That is cargo cult burger.
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/applied/wiggins/Classes/E4903/Fall2003/cargo.pdf
Daniel @ 17:
Would a pita work, or would the different dough throw off the taste? Hmm.
And all this time I thought those burger half-wraps out of butcher paper like Red Robin and such use were the perfect solution. Who knew it needed CAD and a CNC machine?
@8:
How would this work better than the wrapper that most burgers come in?
What is needed is a bigger bun, with a slot in the middle for the “stuffing”. You fry the meat, then push it, and all the other stuffing into the slot. By holding the slot hole up, gravity keeps all the insides from squeezing out when you chomp on it.
Anyone wants to make a bun like that and post the pics here?
There’s no ‘problem’ so minor that a designer can’t find a way to use three different materials and 2 moving parts to solve it.
Fantastic! It’s so ridiculously complicated that it will deter people from eating this kind of crap-tacular pseudo food! And that’s a good thing…
#17 – Great idea, but any good burger is going to be at least a little bit juicy, which will eventually lead to a soggy-diaper situation and possible compromising of the bun’s structural integrity.
My brother came up with a solution which has yet to fail me: put toppings under the meat as well as on top of it. Since the meat is (generally) narrower than the bun, and each topping must fit on top of what is beneath it, using only a meat-upward technique creates a little topping-ziggurat which leads to top bun instability and eventual burgerfail.
Isn’t this the point of a hamburger?
Like other people said, just reinvent the bun, but that misses the point.
A calzone is the same ingredients as a pizza (well can be), but it’s not the same.
Oof – those art school kids need bigger battles to fight…
I prefer the tiny plastic swords as it is.
As appealing as a burger vice is, for me at least the burger is its own vice.
As the years go by, my vices turn to habits, and my habits to stone, so if I could get this in marble, that’d be top.
A good burger is very far from pseudo food.
Unless you consider vegetables, bread, and meat to be pseudo food. (Or, in my case, veggies, bread, and a soy protein patty.)
Anyone who needs to be insulated from the burger eating experience by a device like this deserves no burger at all, sir.
Good day!
Architects don’t care about “toppling points” and such nonsense. That’s the engineer’s job. They just give the crayon drawings to him or her.
My 11 year old son said:”Right up there with the reusable Hot Dog Bun”.
Wow. It’s like a parody that manages to not be all that funny.
I’d break a tooth on it.