The Burger Van from Yesteryear: A Fond Reminiscence

It's 2009 on a Friday, 1:30pm. School has been particularly busy that week and four hour long lessons have ebbed their way through the day. You're hungry, lethargic and most importantly adolescent; ergo you require a burger.
Everyone has their school-time haunts: the kebab shop, the newsagents or the nearest fast food giant. Mine was a small burger van that only graced us with it's presence on Friday. The bell would ring and the pilgrimage lasted five minutes until you joined a sizable queue full of equally savvy and ravenous students.

The Sacred Burger Outlet With No Name

Unassuming. Arguably uninspiring, but you and your rapacious comrades knew better; this was the only place to get your fix. Tentatively waiting for the line to weed out the uninitiated, those who would give up and compromise with a cookie cutter burger from a commercial outlet, you finally ascend to the front and are requested: "What would you like, young man?". Your choice was made, but to what extent? The quarter pound burger was reliable and steadfast in it's ability to sate the consumer, but the hunger was greater than usual; perhaps the half-pound burger? Something larger? Tales had been told of one who had slain the full one pound burger but these were clearly spurious, they couldn't be true. A fleeting thought suggests a hot dog, however what if it was unsatisfactory? It would be a full week before you could try again.

The line was buckling in anticipation, the decision could not be delayed any longer. A half-pound burger is passed forward, you pay the toll, slather your desired condiment upon it and slink away with the prize in hand.

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

There it is. Your greedy gift to yourself is unfurled from its wrapper, enticing you with pockets of oozing burger sauce and onion. Ready to sate your carnivorous desire...

That was how every Friday lunch transpired for me and a recent visit to that hallowed place brought memories flooding back. A decadently fatty burger; with bite but not tough, yielding but not flabby. Onions that were simultaneously charred and silvery. Creamy, tangy sauce that offered the rich texture of cheese and the vinegary kick of tomato sauce. All in a soft bun, to be taken and squirrelled away to your favourite bench on the seafront.

It isn't expensive, it isn't refined. It's not healthy and it's not ground-breaking. But it is satisfying, moreish, memorable and the closest I think I'll ever get to tasting a weekend. Because that's what it was in one fell swoop; a harbinger for the lazy days to come and the relief that a vacation brings, all contained in a delicious burger.
What could be better than that?