The non-meat and zero trayf version of a roadside snack wagon’s ‘Gob Job Burger’
Many years ago, when I was an itinerant news photographer doing some very late night shifts and before I started keeping to the Jewish Kosher food rules, I used to eat in various roadside snack wagons. Some of the food that I existed on back then makes me shudder today. It was the sort of food that was often so cheap and nasty that I suspected that in large part it was composed of something like mechanically recovered pigs anuses.
There was however, in Whips Cross, East London, quite near to the hospital, a snack wagon called if I recall correctly, ‘Big ‘O’s snack bar’. This was one of the better quality snack wagons that I ate in and they had the advantage that I could park nearby easily. I don’t think I ever got served a pig’s anus from there. Big O’s served up the usual stuff you’d find in a snack wagon; bacon sandwiches, burgers and sausages, but they also did something called a ‘Gob Job Burger’. The Gob Job was a a heart attack between two halves of a giant burger bun. It contained two beef burgers, cheese, sausage, bacon, egg and for those who wanted to tip the hat to the Mrs Grundy of healthy eating, a bit of lettuce as well.
Fast forward a few decades and I’m married, with a child and following a much more kosher diet than I used to, all well and good, but I still hankered after one of Big O’s Gob Job burgers. Because of the laws of Kashrut, bacon and pork sausages are off the menu and out of the burger, also ruled out is adding cheese to a meat dish as that is a forbidden combination. I resigned myself to never tasting a Gob Job again until I worked out that I can make a relatively Kashrut-acceptable simulacrum of the ‘Gob Job’ burger using readily available supermarket ingredients to substitute for the things that are forbidden to Jews.
First, out had to go the beef burger itself and it’s replaced with the best quality vegetarian burger that you can afford. Similarly the sausages can be replaced with Quorn frying sausages. The bacon is much more tricky as there has never (as far as I can find out) been something that looks, as well as tastes like bacon. However, there is a rough alternative in the form of ‘Fakon’ or ‘smoky strips’ which, although it may look like shoe leather when it comes out of the packet and while it’s cooking, does give a rough approximation of the smoky taste of bacon itself. Fake bacon is OK provided that you don’t look at it, as it appears unappetising but tastes acceptable.
The method is pretty simple.
Dip the Quorn burgers in sunflower oil and grill for about 14 mins or so.
While it is cooking, fry the fake pork sausages, put them somewhere warm such as in a low oven and cook the fake bacon.
When the fake bacon is cooked but not too crispy, put it in the oven with the sausages and fry the eggs. As the burgers finish cooking add cheese to the top of them and melt the cheese.
Stack all ingredients into large burger rolls, add whatever green garnish you want, with tomatoes if you wish and squish together. It is tricky to eat, since it’s so large and it’s not something you can eat daintily. However, I’m pleased to say that for me at least, it captures at least some of the tastes and textures that I used to find in a Gob Job Burger form Big O’s snack bar.
So why not give your taste buds and indeed coronary arteries a good workout with this kosherised version of probably one of the most trayf (unkosher) things that I’ve ever eaten. I hope you enjoy making it and eating it as much as I have done.
