Pachola, Hamburguesa Casera, and dinner style burger with McDonald's Copycat Dressing.
Plus: Jalapeño-Cucumber Pickles and Olive Oil Brioche for Buns and Other Goodies* (Atole premium members-only).
That, which calls itself the “best burger” is the promise of a utopia; it is an invitation into a hall of mirrors where you are groomed to believe that you can be anything you want; that by surrendering your teeth into its intoxicating smokey aroma and mouthwatering golden-juiciness, you too can become an amplified version of yourself, a “best you”. Real-good burgers, do not sell themselves as such, they are not made with the meat of cleopatrian oxes or are filled with nonsensical eccentricities like camembert or foie gras, they are so effortlessly delicious, kind-hearted, and selfless that they can perfectly be eaten naked, just like their long-lost Mexican relative: the pachola.
I have an uncle who used to say that my mother’s side relatives (in his case, his wives’) were professional “putter downers”. I could not disagree. His remark was judgmental but its content was undeniably accurate. Most of my maternal-family insights about life and people were so inclined towards deception that they could easily be comprised in a few popular sayings like piensa mal y acertarás / “think badly and you will be right”, dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres / “tell me who you are with and I will tell you who you are, “si el río suena es porque agua lleva” / “if the river sounds it is because it carries water”, or tronco que nace torcido, jamás su tronco endereza / “A log which is born crooked will never straighten its body” (my great-grandfather used to say that if you looked too much in the mirror you would turn into a monkey —so you can imagine what the general tendency in my family was in regards to self-esteem).
According to this laconic philosophy, life was not about recognizing oneself from within but about searching for validation in other people’s gazes. Appearances were overestimated and modesty was taken into a self-defeating extreme. My familial maternal blood ties were all about love —don’t get me wrong— (my grandparents were the sweetest couple in the world), but they were also filled with doubt and fear and understood no better formula to survive than to lower one’s hopes, quiet one’s dreams (because they were just that, dreams), and expect the worst of everyone and everything.
I’ve come to realize though, that there were kernels of truth, of could-have-been actual life lessons in those rigid and prejudiced narratives; that what they lacked was a broader psychological frame, a bigger picture. That by becoming so literal and narrow those words were deprived not only of a more reasonable analytical landscape but from its most powerful component: intuition. In a few words, I was educated to doubt everyone and everything, including my senses.
I was thinking about this last week, as I walked (meditation taken and my eyes set in the pages of a book to not think too much about the outcome of what I was about to do, but with the inner certainty that the truth was on my side, and that it matters) to confront (after almost exactly 20 years of confusion and silence) one of the most feared law-enforcing organs in the city —the Fiscalía or “attorney general” (better known as the “bunker”)— to give my testimony regarding a certain sexual perpetrator. I could not help but wonder, on my way there —as I rode the metro for the first time since the pandemic started— if I would be standing in exactly the same place at the same time, and have to go through the same painful experiences in life, in order to effectively distinguish between good and bad hamburgers (and be able to speak up about it) if my sentimental education were focused on acceptance and self-reliance instead of being constructed over fear and disbelief…
Nonetheless, I felt thankful for being where I was and for doing what I was doing then, and what I am doing now. I have no regrets.
As a food writer, I have been introduced to a few of those deceiving hamburgers who sell themselves as “the best”. These fancy-plated specimens usually appear in the menus of flawlessly choreographed culinary experiences that are good at giving the impression that everything is about you: your astonishing beauty, your mind-blowing intelligence, your admirable self-efficacy, your unwavering ideals, your coolness…
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