January 16, 2004
Berke Breathed: Prognosticator
Posted by pete at January 16, 2004 12:41 AM
Modern fast food is only now catching up to his prophetical scribbling:
Burger King Unveils Bunless Burgers
CHICAGO - It has come to this in America: Burgers are losing their buns. Some of them, at least. Burger King's rollout of breadless Whoppers this week is a nod to the low-carb craze that's sweeping the nation — and the latest evidence that the burger wars are taking a turn for the healthy.
How wonderfully droll that people are less concerned about the quality of meat in a fast food hamburger, or the fat content of the mayonnaise and/or secret sauce, than the bread part, which is probably the safest ingredient.
Ricardo Real, a tourist from Mexico who lunched at a Burger King in downtown Chicago on Wednesday, was unimpressed when informed about the bunless burger and chose a regular hamburger instead. "A burger without bread? That's crazy," he said. "That's not a burger."
No shit, Ricardo. It's a ground beef salad.
The above cartoon is copyright Berke Breathed, 1979. Harmlessly scanned by yours truly - at no financial gain - from my Academia Waltz collection.
An almost identical cartoon appeared as a Bloom County strip, only with Opus as the indignant patron.
The bunless phenom is probably due, at least in part, to the Atkin's cult, errr... I mean diet.
First, I'm highly envious that you have managed to retain your Academia Waltz collection. A pure distillation of Breathed's twisted yet insightful comic genius. Everything he did post-Rabies was not quite the same somehow.
As a former burger-flipper during my college days, I served a few meatless "burgers", but never a bunless one. However, in this day and age, it shouldn't be too difficult for an Adkins devotee to pair up with his friendly neighborhood vegan to equitably split a conventional burger - extra veggies, please. Now the race is on to see who can come up with the first "lo-carb" fries (bleeaack).
That's cool, I'd never seen the original, just the Opus version.
Back when the low-carb thing was just starting to catch on, people did get weird looks when they ordered their "bunless burgers." It was about that time that I finally got up the courage to try to convince a burger place to give me a "burger" with no meat. Occasionally, I'd go through the line right after a low-carb eater, and the cashier would think the world was coming to an end - "First no bun, now no meat? What is wrong with you people?" Fortunately, both requests seem to have become more commonplace over time.