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Before anyone ever heard of Harold, much less Kumar, before the invention of the Crave campaign, before the word Slyder was trademarked I was a teenage White Castle worker. On this last day of National Hamburger Month I'd like to share my memories of working at America's oldest hamburger chain, as well as my thoughts on its present state of affairs.

I started working at White Castle during my senior year in high school. I'd eaten their burgers with my folks as a kid and had enjoyed their "restorative" effects after drinking with my buddies. We used to call the tasty little suckers "White Crapples." When one opened in my neighborhood, I figured what the hell, and applied for a job. After management determined I had a pulse and some level of manual dexterity, however minimal, I was hired.

Back then the uniform was slightly different than it is today. I remember wearing a brown shirt and a baseball cap. All burger cooking was done in clear view. To the left of the register, customers watched their square patties being steam-grilled. I still remember the time a Little League team ordered 100 burgers. Instead of letting the line back up, we opened another station and got to work.

Once after blowing a joint with my co-worker Max, the burgers on my flat top started burning. As I stared into space, he sounded the alarm by screaming, "Bang your head" at me. He averted disaster by ladling onion water onto my griddle. Back then there was no shortage of onion water, since we used dehydrated onions. Small dust clouds would form as we poured dried diced onion into stainless buckets before adding water.

Today's Burger of the Day comes from Rouge, a highly acclaimed New American bistro in Philadelphia. Cathy over at Gastronomy had the pleasure of splitting one of these with a friend recently. It bears pointing out that this bad was ranked No. 4 on Alan Richman's list of 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die. As you can see from the pic, this hefty specimen is topped with Gruyère, under which lurk some tasty caramelized onions. But what did Cathy think? She describes her first bite as "beefy heaven," and goes on to praise the gargantuan patty's moistness. There are some who say that such an outsized burger stretches the very definition of the word "hamburger" to absurd limits. As for me, I know what the next meal I'm having in Philly is, that is of course after I down a Tony Luke's roast pork Italian.

[via Tastespotting]