So what is a cheeseburger anyway?

There are varying thoughts about what a cheeseburger actually is. Granted I'm sure you saw the post where in Tamba, the sign says Humburger... which may be another matter entirely... but what is a hamburger?

I just had another recent post with Senegalese 'variations upon the theme' in food. Onion soup with some potato and a cordon bleu with some mixed vegetables inside (umm-ummm!!).

One of my favorite stories is when Brook and I were traveling from Dakar to Tamba and we stopped at a tourist town to eat lunch (one we never stop at). We go to the fast food restaurant there and Brook orders a hamburger and I want to "have it all" so I order a cheeseburger. We get our burgers and start to eat. I get about 1/3 of the way in and I hadn't hit any meat yet. I was thinking, man that sure is a small burger. Now a little warning too about local burgers. You don't really put lettuce or tomatoes on your burger. What you do here is put french fries on top of your burger and then you put a lot of ketchup and maybe mayonnaise on to of that and smoosh down the bun on top. Anyway, I just want to say for the record that there is a lot of stuff in the burgers here. I'm not sure if it's the lebanese influence or what, but I've seen it in Mali too, where they stick french fries on your burger. guess it's the 'one-stop shop' for burger and fries. Anyway so I get in about 1/3 way into my burger and hadn't hit any meat. I get curious, pull off the bun and guess what? There isn't any meat. Hmm. I think to myself, well somehow (God knows how) they forgot to put the meat on. So I shuffle up to the counter and say, um, yeah... Um I ordered this cheeseburger here and somehow there is no meat on it.

The cook looks down at my 'burger' and says, oh, well you ordered the cheeseburger. Cheeseburgers come with cheese. I say, yeah, but where's the meat? And he said, You ordered the Cheeseburger (like duh, he's thinking). He explains to me patiently... see the cheeseburger comes with Cheese... not meat. He says, if you wanted the meat you should have ordered the hamburger. I stand there, unable to think of a response.

Well I finally answer, I'm not sure if you know this, but the word "burger" in English actually means meat. He looks at me. No kidding he says. I say, yeah, interesting isn't it? He says, "Well yeah here it means you get the cheese." As if that is the end of the story. And I suppose it was. I couldn't really say anything to that. I sit down and finish my cheesebuur... my cheese bun with a bunch of french fries, cheese and ketchup. Yummy. I hardly missed the burger

So given this in mind, we're coming down to Dakar the other day... I took 2 PCVs with me in the car I rented and we stop at the Blue Bird. That is Brook's favorite stop as he's not a rice and sauce fan and they have decent... you know, hamburgers. So I explain to the PCVs that their hamburgers are pretty good. I said, you know as usual, they come with french fries on them... and I said here they come with a fried egg too on top of the burger. I told them that this place takes the "Everything but the kitchen sink" approach to their burgers. But I said, if you don't want the egg, like me, you can order it without the egg. They say okay. So two of us wanted no egg, one wanted the egg (why not attitude). So off they shuffle to the bathroom and I am left with the server to order the burgers. I say, I'd like two burgers without the egg and one with the egg. And the server says so you want a cheeseburger? And I say, oh and the hamburger doesn't come with the egg? She says, no, all the burgers come with cheese. She says the hamburger comes with the egg and the Cheeseburger doesn't come with the egg. I sit there. I say, Okay, so both the cheeseburger and the hamburger come with cheese... (I want to make sure I heard correctly) and the hamburger comes with the egg. Cheeseburgers don't have egg. The server nods. Yes, she says. ...Okay... I said, alright. Then I want two cheeseburgers and one hamburger.

I confirm one more time when she comes back... I say the non-egg cheeseburgers? and she places them in front of us... and then the eggy hamburger (with cheese) goes to the other one. That's logical, isn't it?