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Fascination of Fat CHRISTOPHER HUTSUL The doctor peers into a monitor, watching a video X-ray of a human heart. Blood flows through the knotted vessels, then hits a throbbing snag — a clogged artery. Dr. Michael Bentley-Taylor has stared into thousands of plugged hearts in the cardio cathlab at Toronto East General Hospital. But this one is particularly bad. Ninety-eight per cent blockage, he might surmise, major disease. Now let's get some pizza. No amount of cardio carnage can quell Bentley-Taylor's passion for fatty foods. Same goes for the rest of the world. No matter how much the experts preach lean living, we're still riding the gravy train. From the griddle to the grave, we're blubber-munching lard lovers. Proof is at Dangerous Dan's. |
Keith Beaty/Toronto Star Dangerous Dan's owner James McKinnon created the Coronary Burger after his dad's heart attack. It was meant as a joke but now he sells 50 a week. |
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Inside the
Queen St. E. restaurant, chef James McKinnon is grilling two 8-ounce
cheese-slathered beef patties, four slices of bacon, and frying an egg. No, it's
not a meal for four. It's the ingredients of his Coronary Burger — and it's
soon to be accompanied by mayonnaise and the rest of the fixings. Fries and
gravy and a Pepsi are the chaser.
Inside the Queen St. E. restaurant, chef James McKinnon is grilling two 8-ounce
cheese-slathered beef patties, four slices of bacon, and frying an egg. No, it's
not a meal for four. It's the ingredients of his Coronary Burger — and it's
soon to be accompanied by mayonnaise and the rest of the fixings. Fries and
gravy and a Pepsi are the chaser.
In Brooklyn, Christopher Sell is getting famous for deep frying Twinkies, while
7-year-old Emily McComas wins a recipe contest in California by embellishing her
peanut butter sandwich with chocolate chips, crispy rice cereal, powdered sugar
and dried cherries.
And in my own kitchen, my female housemates gaze in morbid fascination as I
deep fry baked beans in bacon fat.
Where there's grease, greedy little humans aren't far behind.
"There's no doubt that all of us are weak-willed when it comes to
food," says Bentley-Taylor. "We know what's right, but seldom do it.
Partly it's availability and part of it is the natural pleasure of life. We'd
rather have that pizza."
Bentley-Taylor's says the cheesy snack works with his hectic schedule. He'll
conduct 10 angiograms in a morning before doing his rounds — and he needs
something that he can take on the run. But a heart doctor eating pizza?
Shouldn't he be nibbling rice wafers?
"People look at me and say look at what that wretched cardiologist is
eating."
"I have a warm, full feeling in my stomach when I eat pizza,"
Bentley-Taylor says. "I don't get a pain in my chest — if I did, I'd
quit. I won't pretend that I don't slip up at times, but I do it much less than
I used to."
Of course, the doctor expresses profound concern for our culture of
overeating, which he says leads to diabetes and eventually, heart disease. B.T.,
as he's known at the hospital, says the problem has more to do with how much we
eat than what we eat.
That's why B.T. has cut back on junk food in recent years. But even a
moderate amount of pizza can bite back.
After experiencing chest pain a few weeks ago, B.T. had an angiogram that
revealed minor disease in his blood vessels. So he doesn't take the effects of
bad eating lightly.
But when he sees that glistening breakfast platter ...
"I went to England in August to see my father when he was sick," he
remembers. "And the breakfasts ... eggs, sausage, bacon. It's appalling in
terms of health, but let's be honest — it's lovely. Nothing's better than a
breakfast like that."
Not far from where B.T. plowed into those daunting meals is Glasgow. It's no
coincidence that in 1999, Dundee University named it the world's capital for
heart attacks. It's a dubious honour, but there's company at the top of the fat
charts.
For the second consecutive year, Houston has been named America's fattest
city by Men's Fitness Magazine. In Canada, if you're looking for lard in
all the wrong places, point your belly towards St. Catharines. According to
Statistics Canada 2001, it's Canada's fattest city — 57.3 per cent of the
population is overweight or obese.
Executives at Dangerous Dan's take heed — these places are your target
markets should you decide to expand.
McKinnon, owner and chef at the eatery, created the burger as a joke. His
father had had a heart attack and was coming to visit the restaurant for the
first time since his hospital stay. McKinnon invented the burger and put in on
the menu to razz his dad. "We had a few beers one night and came up with
the silliest thing we could think of. We decided to throw an egg on it just to
be the pièce de résistance."
Now he's selling 50 Coronary Burgers a week. Two of those were served to Food
Dude Jon Filson and me a few days ago. We're still recovering.
Because you don't eat this thing — you excavate it. Fifteen minutes into
working on the beast, the Food Dude pulled the burger away from his face and
announced, "I just hit egg." Later, in the cab, he marvelled at
finding grease in his nostrils.
That's the way McKinnon likes it. Malicious and delicious.
"I told a vegetarian that came in other day, we're basically an
abattoir. We take animals and put them on a bun and serve them with a little bit
of sauce. I'm not too politically correct. If you're some tofu-eating vegetarian
who puts wheat germ in everything you eat, you shouldn't come in here anyway.
That's not our type of restaurant."
McKinnon doesn't really think his food is that unhealthy. He admits that a
Coronary Burger every day would send you to an early grave, but says it's okay
to splurge once in a while.
"People want that kind of food. It's a good homemade burger. Anything in
moderation. Just don't be a glutton."
But what about Sean Milligan, who eats five burgers a week at Dangerous
Dan's? He's probably a wheezing sofa sloth, right? Nope. He's a lean, mean rock
climbing instructor at the Toronto Climbing Academy.
"I was a vegetarian for a long time. But the type of lifestyle I lead
requires that I get the protein. I've tried a lot of diets, but this works best
for me. I'm getting enough activity that I'm not concerned about eating
meat."
Would he be concerned about eating greasy sweets?
At Brooklyn's ChipShop, famous for its fish and chips, its owner is tinkering
with the Twinkie. The sugary snack just wasn't oily enough for Sell, so he took
it to the next level — the deep fryer. He dusts his golden-hot Twinkies with
icing sugar, and sells them for $3 a pop.
Of course, you don't need to visit a restaurant to abuse your arteries. You
can visit me and enjoy my masochistic breakfast invention. Take a big pan, fill
it with bacon, and let it sizzle without draining the fat. When there's a
bubbling pool of grease in the pan, pour a couple cans of baked beans with pork
sauce in there and let it deep fry. Pour it all on to cold, sliced tomatoes next
to buttery eggs. Serve with piercingly cold beer (see the full recipe, above
right).
It's so evil, I had to name it Satan's Breakfast.
And they'd probably enjoy it in Glasgow, Houston and St. Catharines. Because
when that platter of golden-fried goodness is served up hot and thick, most of
us would rather eat first and ask a cardiologist questions later —between
pizza-breaks, that is.
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