Why Do Hambugers Taste So Lousy in Other Countries?

I was in Toronto the other day and made the mistake of ordering a hamburger. Man, it was terrible; I could only take a few bites and then let it alone. It had been a year or so since I'd traveled outside of the U.S., and I'd forgotten that you just don't order hamburgers in countries outside of the U.S. There's an amusing subplot dealing with hamburgers in Whit Stillman's film, Barcelona. In it, a couple of Spanish women use the popularity of hamburgers in the U.S. as the exemplar of the bad taste of Americans. The Americans in the movie object, pointing out that hamburgers outside of the U.S. typically taste terrible. The film ends with the Spanish women, now married to the American men, biting into their first real (i.e., American) hamburger, and loving it.

But what I don't understand is this: Why do hamburgers taste so terrible outside of the U.S.? I figure it must be either what they feed cattle in other countries, or perhaps the cut of meat that butchers use to make hamburger in other countries. But whatever the cause, hamburgers taste terrible outside of the U.S. Even when you're just a few miles across the border, like Toronto.

The thing is, I ordered prime rib at another meal (my publisher chose the restaurant, I would have gone for something other than beef in Toronto - I did have some pretty good Indian food while there, so this is not an anti-Toronto thing). The prime rib wasn't bad at all. So why would the prime rib taste just fine, but the hamburger taste so terrible?

Go figure.

What I'm Listening to These Days

Giovanni Pergolesi's, Stabat Mater. Here's the "Quando corpus & Amen."

Just about anything by The Angelics. Here's "When my savior calls me home," and here's "Touch me Lord Jesus."

Deuteronomy 30.4 w/ Matthew 24.31

Deuteronmy 30 discusses that God will restore Israel from the Exile that would come as judgment as outlined in Deuteronomy 28.

The margin note in the New American Standard provides this literal rendition of Dt 30.4: "If your outcasts are at the end of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back." (The NAS text translates "heaven" as "earth." The NIV comes a little closer with "land under heaven." The KJV, ESV, American Standard & etc. all get it right with "heaven.")

This brings to mind Mt 24.31: "And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other."

Jesus tells of Israel's judgment in Mt 24 (continuing his discussion from the end of Mt 23). But the OT pattern is judgment followed by repentance and then restoration. So it is here, as Israel "sees" the ascended Lord (as Jesus said they would, in his defense before the Sanhedrin, Mt 26.64), mourns (24.30, Rev 1.7), and then is restored in 24.31.

A Song is Worth a Thousand Commentaries

Who would set these three verses as the key to understanding John's Revelation?

Rev 19.6 "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, 'Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.'”

Rev 11.15 "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.'”

Rev 19.16 "And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, 'King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.'"

The answer is here.