On Shaky Ground

Meatloaf with rows of greenish something in the middle, bleeding inside its pastry case? Leaning tower of burgers afloat on a sea of rice? Some half-assed hamburger-based Charlotte Royale stuffed with potato salad and onions instead of Bavarian cream? Sign me up! The cover alone is enough to sell me on Great Ground-Beef Recipes (Grace White for Family Circle, 1966).

The delights on the cover are all pretty complicated, but surprisingly enough, the faux-Royale has the shortest recipe:

It's a Matambre Roll, or more accurately, a faux-matambre, as as the real matambre is a cut of meat available in parts of Latin America, but not generally to U.S. cooks. Here, ground beef tries to pretend it's a similar cut to hold the carrot-and-bread stuffing. From what I can gather, the carrots at least are usually a part of a real matambre roll! However, my investigations suggest that arranging the rolls in a little circle and plopping German potato salad topped with red onion in the middle is not exactly traditional.

You might not think that the little burger tower would have a longer recipe than the jelly-rolled and meticulously arranged matambre roll, but you would be wrong.

Pagoda Burgers take an entire half page (rather than nearly a half page) because the instructions need to specify how to make a dozen patties in three different sizes, plus broil pineapple and tomato, plus make a soy-molasses-lemon-green-onion sauce, then assemble the whole mess into towers over rice, all garnished with a preserved-kumquat-and-pickle flower. It's a lovely and vaguely hat-shaped way of informing the family that you've lost your mind.

The real pièce de résistance, of course, is the bleeding pastry meat case, aka Continental Pâté Loaf.

And it is an all-day affair, from the Meat-Pie Pastry-Making, to the baking, to gelatin injection and chilling and finally, the Fluffy Mustard Saucification.

The dinner company had better be damn appreciative.

Of course, my tastes run a bit more simple. The beauties on the cover are eye-catching, but are they any competition for this?

You might ask what's the big deal about a burger with some cheese and onion rings on top, but if that's all you notice, you're seriously missing out on the top bun. (It's not on top yet. Look to the left.)

Yep, it's covered in green beans. Intentionally. (The dried-out-peach-skin-looking-thing on top of them is supposed to be bacon.)

I'm not sure what the hamburger club is or why the members expect people to eat what is essentially green bean casserole as a burger topping, but I imagine half of the audience is repulsed and half is feeling strangely compelled. If you're in the latter half, now you know what to do with holiday leftovers!

And finally the treat I'm pretty sure nobody asked for: King Burgers!

I mean, I can't imagine there is a huge market for burgers garnished with a surreal mixed grill of broiled mashed potatoes and peach halves filled with pickle relish. But hey, the title insists the recipe is great, so eat like a king if you want. I think I will avoid the royal treatment....