Paula Deen Paula Deens A Burger

It's hard to say what makes a truly great burger, and we here at The Takeout are always trying our damnedest to solve that long-running question. Is the secret in the toppings? The bun? The proper hand-to-mouth stance? Its emergence from a Steak 'n Shake kitchen?

There are a lot of ways to make a great burger, even if many will bring out the purists anew. But on a recent episode of Fox & Friends, human manifestation of American culinary excess Paula Deen demonstrated a method of integrating butter into your burger, which at first blush we can only describe as "upsetting."

Deen takes frozen cubed butter and mixes it into the ground beef before forming the patties. While the source gives us, uh, pause, our immediate visceral reaction was quickly replaced by the reality of this being exactly the type of shit our food website espouses.

But then, it's all relative, right? For a quick bit of contrast, check out this video from the kitchen of a Culver's (if you know, you know), in which an adult making butter burgers for other adults with self-respect and dignity sears the meat while buttering the bun, in order to add the proper amount of butter without overwhelming the senses:

In fairness, butter burgers exist at a bit of a weird cultural nexus. Just last week, The Takeout's Kevin Pang wrote about his love of Solly's, the Milwaukee burger diner that adds an ice cream scoop of butter onto their griddled burgers. Some who finds butter on beef disgusting might still dollop a slab of compound butter over their steak frites. Others still (Deen included; sorry, everyone) would argue that there's no such thing as too much butter in their meal. Takeout readers, sound off in the comments, and let us know where you stand on the butter burger, and butter's place in meat preparation at large.