"National Hamburger Festival" news and stories

Here at Slashfood burgers have been on our foodar since May. Heck, now that we're into summer they're on everybody's mind, including the good citizens of Akron, Ohio, who hosted the National Hamburger Festival this past weekend.

The hefty hamburger above was cooked up this weekend, but not in Akron. Weighing in at 10 pounds, Big Bad Bubba's Double Wide hails from Huntington, W. Va. Specifically Hillbilly Hotdogs, which last year created a 5-pound burger known as, you guessed it, Big Bad Bubba's Single Wide.

This weekend HH added the BBDW to its menu. This massive sandwich may sport a 6.5-pound patty, but it's still less than one-sixth the weight of the largest burger I've ever heard of. Either way, I'd love to see Kobayashi take one down, if only so he could declare himself a big bad bubba, even if he is only half-wide.

Source

Hamburgers have been in the food news a lot lately. I started noticing it back in May when Craig LaBan (the same one who is being sued by a restaurant he negatively reviewed), the food critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer, went searching for the best burger in Philly. He was so moved by the experience that he wrote and performed a love ballad to the cheeseburger.

It was seemingly quiet in the burger world for a while, but then this last Wednesday, there was that burger recipe competition at the Rare Bar and Grill in New York City that whittled over 400 burger recipes down to a manageable four. The cluster of recipe finalists were prepared by the chefs at the Rare and presented to an illustrious panel of five movers-and-tasters. Adam Kuban of Serious Eats was one of the judges (along with food critic Ed Levine) and he wrote up a thorough blow-by-blow of the experience.

Just today, I learned that this weekend, Akron, OH will be hosting the National Hamburger Festival. They will be offering a variety of events, including Bobbing for Burgers (in a kiddie pool of ketchup), a Best Burger Competition and a Miss Hamburger Festival Contest (for which, at the ripe old age of 28, I am too old to enter). If you live in the Akron region, you should know that tickets cost $5 a day and are still available (kids under 7 get in for free).

Thanks to Vanessa PR for the pic.