“Just a burger? Just a burger. Robin, it’s so much more than ‘just a burger.’ I mean… that first bite – oh, what heaven that first bite is. The bun, like a sesame freckled breast of an angel, resting gently on the ketchup and mustard below, flavors mingling in a seductive pas de deux. And then… a pickle! The most playful little pickle! Then a slice of tomato, a leaf of lettuce and a… a patty of ground beef so exquisite, swirling in your mouth, breaking apart, and combining again in a fugue of sweets and savor so delightful. This is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread, Robin. This is God, speaking to us in food.”

– Marshall Eriksen, “How I Met Your Mother”

For a while I was hesitant to broach the subject of hamburgers, since other food columnists have so much in the past. They are the food equivalent of the song “Freebird” – excellent music, but overdone and overplayed. We love hamburgers, yes, but we get far too much input about them. 90 percent of which probably comes from the Food Network and Travel Channel (thanks a lot, Adam Richman).

What follows is a personal, revelatory experience involving hamburgers. It may not be as comprehensive as Epicurious.com‘s “Best Burgers in America,” or as scientific as Serious Eat’s dispelling of the “12-year-old McDonald’s hamburger that won’t rot” myth, but I can promise it will be heartfelt, poignant and worthy of this glorious anthem of food and American tradition that we like to call…the hamburger.

The First Burger: Anonymous family restaurant, 1998

At eight years old, I was a voracious eater. I averaged four slices of delivery pizza a pop. My typical McDonald’s order consisted of a McChicken and a double cheeseburger. Where most saw a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies, I saw an after-school snack.

My eating ability had less to do with size than with absolute determination. I may have been small, but when it came to food, I was invincible.

At least, that’s what I thought until the day Mom was sitting across from me at a mom-and-pop restaurant, telling me not to order a hamburger.

“The burgers here are half a pound of meat, Sam. If you order a burger, you won’t be able to finish it all.”

Up to this point, I had been half-listening, gazing at the old sports photos and jerseys on the wood-paneled walls as my distracted 8-year-old self was wont to do. But the assertion that I wouldn’t be able to do something stirred me out of my reverie.

“What”?

“If you order a burger, you won’t be able to finish it.”

“Oh,” I nodded, agreeing with her in the manner that one agrees with crazed rants of the mentally unstable – more out of a desire to keep the peace than out of actual concurrence.

Of course I ordered the burger. I did it because 1) I needed to teach that restaurant a thing or two, and 2) even though my mom said not to order it, her eyes were egging me on. I think she wanted to eat what I couldn’t finish.

The burger came, and with it my first flicker of doubt. The thing was monstrous – half the size of my plate and taller than two PB&Js stacked one on top of the other. The only thing keeping it together was a toothpick rising valiantly out of the center of the bun, like the flag of an explorer in unknown territory.

I had to squish down the top with both hands to take the first bite. From there, I started working my way through the giant hunk of meat. My mother’s eyes danced with enjoyment, watching me in my struggle. Halfway through the burger, I set it down. My stomach was full and unyielding, and the remainder of the burger seemed impossibly huge to take on.

“We can take the rest home if you want,” Mom offered. I refused, plunging in again. This burger was going down.

Annoyingly sharp-tasting pickles, dry and starchy bun, impossibly vast amounts of ground beef… Ten minutes later, the burger was no longer a mere sandwich, but an instrument of torture. I threw in the towel and handed the plate over to Mom, who was staring at me hungrily across her salad.

My stomach was in pain, but the anonymous family restaurant monster burger had taught me an important lesson in humility: I was not an all-powerful food conqueror.

Samantha Stepp is a junior majoring in journalism. E-mail suggestions, recipes or comments to [email protected].