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Inversion of the Burger Pods

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How delightful that the perennial American fast-food also-ran, Burger King, is courting a financial inversion strategy that would make it technically Canadian.

This is one I will file under the heading Things I Already Thought Were True. Because there was always a slight Canadian tinge to BK, starting with the fake royalist vibe and including its cheese-smothered, can’t-be-good-for-you ham sandwich of the ’80’s, called the Yumbo, which sounds like something a starving Manitoba lumberjack would murmur when he hears the dinner bell.

I loved the Yumbo so much, I did not see how the bottom line of other junk food chains could compete with its obvious appeal. This is just another example of how completely out of step I am with what most Americans think. Back in the middle of the last half of the last century, when fast food was still a novel idea, a kid could imagine Burger King and McDonald’s competing for total control of our culture. The notion, back then, that one or the other might consume another entity that dispenses massive quantities of coffee and donuts would have been breathtaking and possibly the End of History. To have been able to get french fries and a chocolate old-fashioned at the very same counter would have kept me from reaching adulthood.

My other favorite thing about Burger King was that by wrapping its sandwiches in paper, the company stood in stark contrast to McDonald’s reliance on wasteful styrofoam clamshell containers, otherwise known as Burger Pods. When governments started to ban this kind of packaging and forced McDonald’s to re-configure, I thought Burger King had finally triumphed.

Alas, it was just one skirmish in a forgotten battle.

Today, in realm of trendy things that are taking over our lives and that cannot be stopped or ignored, fast food has fallen far behind the Internet and being drenched by Ice Water from Buckets. But there was a time when we even thought the future would be shaped by the containers our food came in – as frighteningly depicted in this trailer for a film by my friend Jeff Strate of Timid Video:

I did believe that I would never again live in a world without burger pods, though it has been years since I’ve seen one. And I have finally accepted that the Yumbo, like the Triceratops, will never again drip globs of cheese on a thirsty earth.

What did you used to eat that you don’t eat anymore?

55 thoughts on “Inversion of the Burger Pods”

  1. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    There are many things I used to eat that have fallen off the menu–Hostess Cupcakes, which I thought were heavenly as a child, were one of the first. Bologna sandwiches, too, which were the food of choice when we travelled with Uncle Jim on our fabulous family adventures. Wonder Bread, part of the sandwich–gone.
    Liver and Onions–I gave those up at birth and now don’t eat that because no one can make me.

    I know, I know. Some people love it.

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  2. oscar meyer had an item that was a favorite for me. it was some kind of lunchmeat with little flecks of cheese in it. i used to feel bad because we would buy it and it only had about 8 slices in the package and i would eat it in two days. the concept of buying two was beyond the comprehension of the food buyer at our house,
    my house allowed birthday dinner requests. is it sherrilee who had the same 7 meals more or less all the time. we had our version of that. cheeseburgers fishsticks meatloaf chicken remember salisibury steaks in those littel plastic bags you boiled?the thought of my mothers version of pork chops makes me smile. someone must have told her cooking was a responsibility and she never tried to do more than get it from the refigerator into our mouths. egg salad grilled cheese peanut butter all done in a way that would cover the basic premise of being in a food group without giving you any idea that food was something to be enjoyed. on my birthday i would request corned beef or ribs. something that smelled as good as it tasted for hours before the meal. today i eat onions and garlic like there is no tomorrow. i just like the smell. i whop a lot of stuff up on a whim when my taste buds call out. never mind what isn the fridge what do the food sirens call out to me about. i follow their song

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    1. Gosh tim… good memory. It was my mother who had just 7 meals growing up. My grandfather, if alive today, would definitely be diagnosed with some serious OCD issues.

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  3. canada has a rule they implement when a foreign manufacturor wants to enter the marketplace, they add a tarrif to make it easy. if burger king was asked to pay a tax that would equal the savings they think thye will realize by moving ill bet theyd stay. i would like to see malt vinegar with my fries though.
    has anyone ever considered healthy fast food? how hard would it be?

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    1. tarrif to make it even not easy
      if they charge 10 dollars for something and the chinese want to come in with a 4 dollar item they just tax it 6 dollars. i guess that is easy isnt it?

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  4. Well, meat, eggs, cheese and milk, basically. I know, I’m no fun.

    tim reminds me of these hot dogs we used to get that had cheese embedded in them. My mom, ever the thrifty Depression survivor, soon got tired of paying extra and started slitting sale-bought hot dogs and stuffing them with American cheese. Bit messier, but tasted about the same, and you got more cheese. I haven’t tried to veganize those; cheese-stuffed hot dogs should stay in childhood where they belong.

    You can make a pretty good vegan chili dog with Daiya shreds, Smartdogs, and vegetarian canned chili (or make your own, but Hormel and Whole Food’s store brand are both pretty good when you’re in a rush). You can also make a great BLT with marinated tempeh (smoke flavoring, maple syrup and soy sauce). I still have to veganize some hot dishes, and find the perfect stuffing recipe. Then I’ll be done with my food nostalgia trip and can get back to figuring out Thai food.

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    2. CG – like you, some things I don’t try to bring up to speed. Tuna salad for one – that remains part of a really happy memory from my childhood and I don’t want to mess with it!

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    3. CG, tim, VS, and other veggie-minded baboons, have you tried Beyond Meat? My husband swears by it. Available frozen at Whole Foods. From the Beyond Meat website: “Our Beyond Chicken Strips and Beyond Beef Crumbles are Non-GMO, Gluten-Free, packed with protein, have no saturated, trans fat or cholesterol found in animal proteins and can be found at Whole Foods, Publix, HEB, Sprouts, Safeway and over 2000 retailers nationwide.”
      http://beyondmeat.com/enjoy-real-meat-made-from-100-plant-protein/

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      1. OC – I have seen the product but have not tired it. We don’t do a lot of “meat replacements” at our house; when I was learning to cook vegetarian, these things didn’t exist yet! Never got in the habit of using too much of it. I’ll have to give it a shot.

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  6. Good morning. Like others have already mentioned, I did eat luncheon meat and I no longer eat any of that or almost none. One kind I remember liking was olive loaf which was luncheon meat with olives in it.

    In the last couple of years before I retired I worked at Hormel Foods in Austin. One of my jobs there was helping with the manufacture of sausage. As a result of that experience I am no longer very likely to include sausage in my diet. It contains a great quantity of fat.

    I know there are some good kinds of sausage associated with various traditions. Some of the Hormel sausage is fairly good if you like sausage. However, I am very aware it is filled with fat after having helped make it and I don’t see it as a good food.

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  8. Much of the food staples from the 50s and 60s that have been mentioned, plus canned vegetables, especially beets. Used to eat them in college because they had the most nutrition per unit cost of any other canned vegetable and I was and always will be frugal (for the most part).

    I don’t eat Pizza Hut’s pan pizza anymore although I wish I could. I also don’t eat Velveeta, boxed macaroni and cheese, Hamburger Helper, and many other prepackaged food-like substances that are touted as cheap, tasty, and quick to prepare.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. Chris, I have also stopped eating most kinds of canned vegetables from the store. At one time canned green beans were a regular part of my diet. I haven’t have any of those for many years. If I have enough green beans in my garden I usually freeze some of them. I will buy canned tomatoes if I don’t have some that I have canned myself. Peas are another canned vegetable that I no longer include in my diet. I do sometimes get some frozen peas from the store.

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      1. Sadly, as I age and deal with the debilitating effects of aging, I am driven more and more to eating processed foods (canned tomatoes, frozen dinners, canned soups). I used to make all my soups from scratch, and now I’m barely able to open a can or two. This was all brought to mind by “canned tomatoes,” something I didn’t eat for several decades and now a staple.

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  9. Morning all. When I became a vegetarian at the age of 16, Burger King became my favorite fast food of choice when out and about with friends. This was well before you could get a veggie burger anywhere, but at BK I could order a Whopper without the meat. I got all the other stuff (tomato, lettuce, pickles, sauce) and also several slices of cheese. It was a staple for me in the two years before I went off to college (where I finally met another vegetarian).

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  10. As a kid I ate a lot of breakfast cereals. Don’t recall making a conscious decision to not eat them anymore, but I don’t. I also hardly ever eat candy, cookies or other sweets anymore; they just don’t appeal to me. Otherwise I’m pretty much an omnivore.

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  11. Egad! How could Her Majesty and Parliament allow this to happen? TIm Horton’s part of Burger King! The very idea!

    I used to pour Welch’s grape juice over vanilla ice cream and mush it all up until it was creamy and then eat it. I don’t do that anymore.

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    3. If the topic is weird stuff we no longer eat, I can compete with anyone. Your grape juice slush sounds tasty, Renee. I used to dump a can of shoestring potatoes (satisfies your requirement for salt and fat) on a plate and then I’d dump microwaved chicken ala king on that. A total meal.

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  12. Velveeta – I didn’t know there was another kind of cheese till my teens… and then it was the single-slice-wrapped stuff. Pimento loaf. Sugar Smacks and Pops. Miracle Whip, Rice-a-Roni, canned Tamales (!). On my own I’d never BUY a lot of things, but will eat them if they show up at a potluck.

    Can’t find on Youtube, but here’s link to a sample of “Get a Load of This” by R. Crumb and The Cheap Suit Serenaders:
    http://www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=1025

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        1. I actually worked in the part of the Austin Hormel plant where they manufacture spam. The spam ingredients are poured into cans that are sealed and they are cooked in a vertical oven that is 3 stories high. The cans travel up to the top of the oven and back down. When the cans come out of the oven they go round and round on a long conveyor belt where they are labeled, the labels are checked, the seals on the cans are checked and they are boxed up in various ways for shipping.

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  17. Shucks, Steve – if God didn’t want us to eat canned foods he wouldn’t have invented the can opener. This summer I had a spam burger and I frequently have Campbell’s soup, Starkist tuna, and don’t even get me started on black olives. And I’m with you on the beer, friend – bottled or canned.

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  18. Jello.
    Bologna sandwiches.
    Jeno’s Pizza (from a box! the thought of that just makes me cringe now).
    Liver – well, I never exactly ate that. Luckily my mom cooked it with bacon, so I could eat the bacon and just push the liver around on my plate – but the bacon wasn’t that good, having been cooked so close to the liver.
    Goat meat. Bear meat. Moose meat. Rabbit.

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  19. All very interesting, this stroll down memory lane. I used to eat canned spinach. Not anymore.

    I thought we were going to get into a discussion regarding corporate attempts to avoid paying taxes. Alas, it didn’t happen

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    1. I agree, Emory, that Burger King’s tax dodge leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It will be easy to buy fast food–a rare treat–somewhere else.

      As a kid, I had a thing for canned spinach. It had to be cold, from the fridge. Makes my stomach turn now.

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    2. Canned spinach…ewwwww. Thank goodness my mom did not believe in giving us that to eat. I can just imagine the meal from hell: liver (no bacon), canned spinach, wonder bread, jello, and twinkies. {shudder}

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    3. Glad you brought it up, Emory, although knowing this group of baboons, it would be preaching to the choir. But feel free, tell us what you think about it.

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