The philosophy.

This was born out of a meal that I ate in Las Vegas, where my dining companion chose a dish named ‘Watermelon Ribs’. Being a big fan of ribs and enjoying watermelon, she logically put them both together, in her imagination, and thought it sounded like a smashing idea. It wasn’t. It was an unmitigated, gastronomical failure – exacerbated by my successful choice of the house burger.

I joked that if she’d chosen something composed of bread, meat and cheese, she wouldn’t be feeling nauseous, hungry or jealous. This glib remark became a constant, conscious thought, whenever confronted by a menu, I scoured the list for everything which caught my eye and applied the rules, to see if they matched. They nearly always did. So I decided that if in doubt, I would choose a Bread Cheese Meat combo.

Bread meat cheese, doesn’t have to refer to those specific foodstuffs. The ‘bread’ can be any complex carbohydrate – pasta, potatoes, rice or pastry. The ‘meat’ is pretty self explanatory and the cheese can be extended to eggs and dairy, if necessary. So Lasagne, risotto, macaroni cheese, pizza and even fish & chips (tartar sauce!) make it onto the safe list.

I’m not discounting foods that don’t follow that rule, there are millions of dishes that I would choose that haven’t a hint of BMC in them! It is a philosophy to adopt when unsure, or nervous about the choices that lay before you.

I know what you’re thinking – that’s just an excuse for you to order burgers all the time! – I freely admit, for me, the distillate of this belief is the cheeseburger, because of this I’m basing my quest to explore what makes a basic bread meat cheese, into a great bread meat cheese, by using the humbly magnificent cheeseburger as my benchmark.

The origins of the cheeseburger are essentially the origins of the hamburger. Using this to colour my judgement. I set forth on my quest.