The Bridge to H.U.

The serene pond with its' attendant geese is my welcome company at breakfast. The morning sky streaked with dawn sleepiness. Across the water, Hamburger University sits dark.

I am at the Hyatt Lodge at the McDonald's Campus. I was to be in the area for the weekend and heard (correctly) that it is a nice place to stay. But the symbolism did not really strike me until now, sitting over my plate of organic scrambled eggs and hash browns with Superior (ahem) coffee. Coming to breakfast through the hotel, I passed the sign, "Bridge to H.U.". Hamburger University.

Evidently, hamburgers need a university. I think I need to go here. I like ground beef a lot, but patty making is an elusive skill. Can you over work the meat? How much to dimple the burger to get a flat patty off the grill?

What kind of degree could I get? a Ph.H... a M.H.. or even better a D.H...

The "bridge" to me is really about crossing over to corporate industrial food, leaving food as culture, as personal, as inherently local and human. For most of human culture, food has been all of these things. With the lack of easy storage, refrigeration, preservation techniques, not to mention agriculture as we know it, food has been all about place and people. Gathering and hunting was largely social. It encouraged cooperation and, in some cases, competition for the scarce resources. The bridge to H.U. represents all that modernity has developed - the ability to produce a massive supply of homogeneous food for a system capable of preparing very similar, if not identical, items capable of being transported globally to feed people trained to prefer exactly what can be delivered to them. These are calories, cheap and quick, with yummy fats and sugars to keep us coming back for more.