There are some food abominations that defy explanation, logic, or even appetite. These dishes go to extremes, epitomizing sweetness, fattiness, saltiness, or savoriness. They are foods that common sense would have you avoid. At the same time, they incite a bizarre compulsion to seek them out and eat them. To date, I have come across three dishes that fit into this category: angel food French toast, fois gras poutine, and the Luther burger.

Alright, let's start with the angel food French toast. Angel food cake is traditionally seen as a completely guilt-free confection, low in fat and cholesterol. It is a light and airy cake that is made without egg yolks or baking powder. In fact, because it is leavened entirely by egg whites, special care needs to be taken to cut the cake. Straight edged blades will compress the cake before cutting it. A better method involves taking a pair of forks and tearing the cake to portion slices. Once portioned, what do you do with leftovers? One solution is to re-introduce egg yolk in the form of a French toast batter. Both images and recipes are available on the web at the Food Network and Kaboodle. Personally, given how difficult it is to successfully bake a tall angel food cake, I feel that using it to make French toast defeats the purpose. Why not just go all the way and make a sponge cake? Even so, I find my mind drifting to this recipe every time I consider making angel food cake...

Poutine is Quebec comfort food, a signature dish consisting of fries, cheese curds, and thick gravy. In its original form, it is already excessive, starchy, rich, and savory. Sometime in 2004, Chef Martin Picard decided to re-invent the dish at his Montreal restaurant "Au Pied de Cochon." He added foie gras to the dish. According to the New York Times, he also re-invited the gravy, employing pork stock, flavouring it with foie gras, and enriching it with egg yolks and cream.

I first encountered the Au Pied de Cochon poutine in an episode of No Reservations with Chef Anthony Bourdain. During the segment on the restaurant, Chef Bourdain partakes of almost 14 courses of excess. The fois gras poutine was his third or fourth dish. The image of the fois gras poutine comes from the thisisgonnabegood blog, where one contributer and his family decided to partake of the same multi-course meal of excess. When next I visit Montreal, I will definitely make it a point to visit Au Pied de Cochon. However, I'm going to stop at the foie gras poutine course.

The title of this blog entry comes from the March 14, 2008 edition of Greg Dean's RealLife online comic. The strip in question has the character Greg exclaiming to his wife, Liz, that he has found the "Greatest Epicurean Achievement in the History of Man" and he must eat it. The achievement consists of a hot dog that is wrapped in a hamburger patty, deep fried and served on a submarine bun (hoagie roll in American parlance) with chili, cheese, onions, bacon and a fried egg. When Liz responds that she will be taking out a life insurance policy out on Greg, Greg discovers that the same restaurant also serves a hamburger on a Krispy Kreme doughnut bun.

While the "hamdog" and doughnut encased burger sound like foods that are typically served at a carnival or American state fair, both exist and originate in a restaurant called Mulligan's in Atlanta, Georgia. Mulligan's menu lists the burger as the "Luther Burger." It is also served as a unique concession at Atlanta Grizzly baseball games, where it is marketed as "Baseball's Best Burger."

According to wikipedia, a traditional Luther burger consists of a hamburger patty, a slice of sharp cheddar cheese, two rashers of crisped bacon, and a sliced Krispy Kreme "Original Glazed." It is even served in Google's cafeteria in New York.

Apparently, a variation on the Luther burger is being served at county fairs. The "Deep Fried Krispy Kreme Chicken & Swiss" replaces the hamburger and cheddar cheese with a grilled chicken patty and processed Swiss cheese. It was spotted by Jonco, the author of the bitsandpieces1 blog, sometime in 2006 at Charlie Boghosian's "Chicken Stand." There, he also found deep fried spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, deep fried cheeseburgers, deep fried coca-cola (cola syrup mixed with funnel cake batter), and fried Moon Pies.

Here is a how-to video on making a "Los Angeles style" Luther Burger using Krispy Kreme doughnuts and In-N-Out burgers.




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