Culinary historian, John T. Edge is a fun read. This book follows him cross country as he seeks regional styles and historical techniques that will help him unravel the story of the All-American hamburger.
Here he describes his encounter with Jucy Lucy at Matt’s in Minneapolis, MN: “The burger at bottom right begins to wobble, ballooning outward and then quaking like a capsized turtle. Remember Alien? It’s not unlike that. If you missed Sigourney Weaver’s money shot, I’ll be more precise: it’s as if something is trapped inside that burger; it’s as if something wants out.
“Finally a minor geyser erupts, a thin stream of cheese spouting upward in a textbook exhibition of fluid dynamics. I hear a treble-register swish, an exhalation. And I watch as a blob of cheese exits the side of the burger… I learn from a woman two stools down that I have just witnessed what Jucy Lucy cultists know as a blowout.”
