You know how to make hamburgers. You take some ground beef and fry it, and serve it on a bun with choice of condiments. But did you know that the grab joints used to add oatmeal to the hamburger meat?It blended well, took on the right color and absorbed juices and flavor while lowering the cost per portion. It does increase the fat calories, since much of the flavor it absorbs is fat, but it does make a nutritious alternative to bread crumbs when used to make meat loaf.

I'm partial to a Blue-Cheese Burger myself, and I have memories of being young and stupid (well, younger and stupider than I am today) and finding the best blue-cheese burger I've ever eaten at a Gay biker bar in one of the roughest sections of DC.

Ray Watts, of Texas, writes:

Carl Bohn out of Houston was one of the first ride men to mount an Eli wheel on a trailer to be raised and lowered hydraulically.  He had a couple of other punk rides and with what he could book, he ran a little rag bag show around Texas.   He gave me my first skillos.  While talking about the big scores and stings he had made with the skillos, and the troubles that he had seen, he told me that the largest "Hey Rube" he ever saw was over a grab joint.   The operator had a big sign:  

HAMBURGERS — Everything 5¢

 The mark ordered a hamburger. "One patty or two?" — "One" — "Tomato?" — "Yes." — "Lettuce?" — "Yes." — "Pickle?" — "Yes" — "Onions?" — "Yes." — "Relish?" — "Yes." — "Mayo?" — "Yes."  

When the operator asked for 45 cents, the mark got rangy and loud — so loud that the operator called the roughies, who settled it by bringing the mark into the joint and sitting him on the grill.  

 Reprinted here with permission of Wayne Keyser From the CDRom "On the Midway"

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