What if we smashed the WHOLE burger?

Practicing free will

A few months ago, I ordered a bagel sandwich in Manhattan that came to me kind of smushed. I sent a picture to Allegra, and she insinuated it did not look that appetizing. I had no problem with it myself; it was actually delicious, and it started to fester in my brain.

I kept thinking about that smushed bagel sandwich weeks later. Something about it being all mushed up like that made it... tastier? I decided to explore this idea.

Smashburgers have been a trend in America for a few years now, and there are a lot of devices available online for preparing a smashed patty hamburger. But what if we smush the entire burger after it's prepared?

I bought a patty smasher device online and decided to try it with a McDonald's hamburger.

Overall, the results were not remarkable. It just kind of tasted like a flattened cheeseburger. It needed a bit more texture, so I threw it in the air fryer to achieve some crispiness. This was actually not bad! Mission accomplished? Would I do it again? Probably not. Maybe.

Doing the fork test to check the texture.

I also tried this with the Burger King Whopper, a larger-sized hamburger. This portion of the experiment made me become a vegetarian again.

The sandwich exploded. The Whopper couldn't fit entirely inside that patty smasher, so I had to eventually cut the sides off to get it as flat as possible. Burger King's patties are a lot spongier, and it wasn't flattening enough. However, it was flat enough that it could be a piece of bread on its own... perhaps for a grilled cheese? So I decided to take two flat Whoppers and turn it into a Whopper Grilled Cheese.

This was not good at all. I would have just preferred a Whopper with cheese.

What I realized after conducting this experiment is that my unchecked desire was not for the sandwich to be as flat as possible, but the attractiveness of its potential to be smushed down.

Food writer Helen Rosner has a great thought about this idea: air is the most important ingredient in a sandwich. If the inside of the sandwich is all flattened out, the bread must showcase the texture dynamics of the sandwich. That smushy bagel had a soft outside and a crunchy center from the bacon. That is perhaps why the air-fried flattened cheeseburger from McDonald's wasn't so bad... it had a crunchy outside texture and a little mush on the inside.

I'd love for you to watch my video I spent a few weeks working on. Let me know if you would try this! Maybe I will try smushing other sandwiches.