Stuff the Overstuffing

Cafe Society
#1

There seems to be trend of over stuffing every kind of handheld food. Burritos used to be shaped like a fat cigar: recently I got one that was almost square, covered in sauce, and came wth a knife and fork. I just had a fish taco that was so full that as soon as you picked it up the contents fell out. Yesterday I had a gyro that was also filled to overflowing. The trend also seems to affect burgers.

Tacos, burritos, gyros, bahn mi, and their ilk are meant to be picked up and eaten with the hands.

#2

I usually eat my burritos with a knife and fork. But here’s a nifty solution I saw on one of those “life hack” sites: Put a soft shell taco shell on the plate and eat over that. When you finish the over-stuffed item, roll up the soft-shell and enjoy.

#3

I agree 100%. If I need a knife and fork to eat a burger, it has failed as a burger.

I chalk it up to being ‘extremely American.’ Portion sizes are always the least expensive way to add value to an otherwise unremarkable dish.

#4

Ah, yes our 1st world probs.
But, really any pizza, other than thin crust, I find hard to eat without a fork. I love a pan pizza or a deep dish but your not gonna be able to eat it out of hand til tomorrow after being in the fridge overnight.

#5

A “soft shell taco shell” is called a tortilla.

#6

Moved to Cafe Society.

#7

He probably then eats that with a knife and fork too.

#8

There was a trend, thankfully short-lived, that involved putting the fries on the burger beneath the bun.

No. Just no.

#9

My daughter has always done this with Filet-O-Fishes. She likes to eat French fries European style, with tartar sauce.*

*I got hooked on this when I lived in Czechoslovakia. It’s really good! :o

#10

It is curious to me that in spite of all the movement toward healthier eating and fighting obesity, there is an equal and opposite movement toward monster sized foods in restaurants. It’s all very charming and entertaining for visual appeal to see the 10 inch tall burger with everything under the sun stacked on it and oozing out :rolleyes: but really now, who can pick that up and eat it.

#11

Agreed, and I’m going to go a step further. A proper burger should be a convenient one hand pickup. Any burger failing this is over sized, poorly constructed, or both.

#12

What I want to know is, if people are getting fatter and fatter, why are airliner seats getting smaller and smaller? :mad:

#13

It was remarkable to come back to the US after a few weeks abroad and realize that all the people looked overstuffed. Like plump sausages in stretched-out skin casings. A few years back we were in Hangzhou, and the taxi driver refused to believe we were Americans because we weren’t overstuffed (he decided we were Canadian). Portion sizes in and out of the US follow the overstuffed appearances. I think the “healthier eating” movement is only given lip service, but never actually reaches the lips which are busy with whatever bacon-stuffed thing is available.

#14

I asked a similar question when I was recently in hospital. The meals had the meat/fish/whatever you could order, if you wanted vegetables you ordered those as “extras” and they didn’t put them on the plate with the main meal, you got them separately. So, if you ordered them, you got like 3 times as much. I was having discussions about my eating because I’d lost a lot of weight and I asked the dietician how anyone could eat 8 potatoes as well as the main meal (that’s what I got, 8). She said that people really do eat that much. (and this wasn’t crazy food, it was nice healthy food). Substitute a portion of main, 8 potatoes and a bowl of green beans with fatty greasy calorific food and greasy chips and grilled cheese and you’d be ingesting a lot of calories.
Because I’m a small eater (even before the health issues) I ask them to go easy on the portions they give me so they don’t get wasted. Nobody can do it. There’s this inherent “more is better” and they still pile it on. Even if I’m standing there and go “that’s good”, the spoon will add more…:smiley:
As for overstuffed burritos, the other day when I got mexican, I went for a bowl instead. It did me for about 3 meals, and I didn’t have to contend with the soggy tortilla for the successive meals. I got some corn chips instead. They do a “mini” sized burrito, but that’s huge by my stomach’s standards.
I am “strange” in that I can’t eat a lot, but when ‘regular people’ start saying that portions are nuts, they must really be getting ridiculous.

(oh, and as for mcdonald’s chips in Paris, you can get mayonnaise with them. yum.)

#15

To a certain extent, this is not new. Decades ago, we ate at the Stage Deli in Manhattan, and the sandwiches there had something like a pound of pastrami in them. They were easily four or five inches thick. (If you do a Google search for images of sandwiches from the Stage Deli or Katz’s Deli, you’ll see what I mean.)

#16

I was going to say, not sure how “new” this is. I was in college in the mid-90s, and burritos as big as your head were popular even back then. I don’t ever remember seeing a burrito the size of a cigar. My local bar down the street serves a 3/4 pound burger as their regular burger, and has since I ever remember going there (also mid-90s). In my lifetime, portion sizes have generally been stupidly huge.

#17

In my book, any pizza *not *requiring a fork is a failure.

#18

Considering the mission style burrito was created in the 60s I have no idea why you think its a new food trend. Even internationally when i was in Germany a few years ago i was served schnitzel that covered my whole plate with sides on top of that. Sure its easy to make an Americans are fat joke since we certainly overweight as a whole but giant food isn’t a new trend and isn’t an American only trend.

#19

Chip butties! :smiley: