Bare Essential

[mappress mapid="206"]

NOT EVEN TWO WEEKS INTO National Hamburger Month and I am cautious of overload. At one silly point, possibly alcohol-empowered, I thought I was going to have a burger a day for the whole month of May, an endeavor I soon enough realized no doctor nor rational person with support. So how was I going to take advantage of catching up on all the old and new burgers without nausea or ennui setting in?

By switching up the burger, I decided. After a nice run of regular beef hamburgers, I was reminded of more than a few of my friends asking me if I had tried any of the burgers on the menu at Bareburger, where the options of meat run the gamut from the obvious beef to lamb, elk, wild boar, bison, and even ostrich. Better yet, all the meats are free-range, pasture raised, and antibiotic- and hormone-free, and I am grateful to be at an age where I realize how important that is to my sense of moral responsibility and to my health.

The nearest Bare Burger was a zip downtown to Murray Hill, 34th & 3rd. It was the perfect post-lunch/pre-dinner calm, in a space with literally and figuratively campy decor, and a menu of many appetizing options of organic proteins to put between two pieces of bread.

Bare Burger

They offer a long list of signature burgers as well, and I wound up being very pleased with my choice of The Western, a burger of the recommended bison meat topped with pepper jack cheese, blackened maple bacon, fried onions, house-made coleslaw, and peppercorn steak sauce. A champion in stature and taste, the high handful's tasty toppings did not overwhelm but complimented nicely the leaner meat with its inherently slightly gamier and concentrated beef flavor.

Bare Burger

Despite this particular burger's moniker, I've decided to add a new category of burger: The FARM BURGER, which encompasses the types of burgers that go straight from earth-to-plate ("farm-to-table", more colloquially), whether it be the meat, produce, cheese, bacon, etc. Bare Burger proudly sticks/gets back to the ways we used to eat and feed our communities while sustaining them, as we did for thousands of years until about 60 years ago, when we started to migrate to the big cities in large numbers to let factories, machines, and appliances do all the hard work for us.

And when I experience some people's adversity to try elk or ostrich as a beef alternative, I have to remind them that many of the more common and readily available burgers contain a lot less "prime" or even better-tasting beef than they realize. So as fast food America tries to hook our children on ammoniated beef hoof cartilage, I applaud Bare Burger and the ideology behind them for looking out for their fellow man and his or her health. Even if they have to tempt and convince us with delicious burgers to do so.

Bun Apple Tea!

KACnyc

Kerry Alaric Cheeseboro