#burgerquest

"i'm so sick of time travel..."

In my quest for burger understanding, as I read through Semiotics for Beginners, I’ll pull out any interesting or thought-provoking quotes, then write down my thoughts.

Chapter 2 Part 7

Here is a homely example of levels of verbal abstraction in relation to a cow called 'Bessie':

1. The cow known to science ultimately consists of atoms, electrons etc. according to present-day scientific inference... 2. The cow we perceive is not the word but the object of experience, that which our nervous system abstracts (selects)... 3. The word 'Bessie' (cow) is the name we give to the object of perception of level 2. The name is not the object; it merely stands for the object and omits reference to many characteristics of the object. 4. The word 'cow' stands for the characteristics we have abstracted as common to cow, cow, cow... cow. Characteristics peculiar to particular cows are left out. 5. When Bessie is referred to as 'livestock' only those characteristics she has in common with pigs, chickens, goats, etc. are referred to. 6. When Bessie is included among 'farm assets' reference is made only to what she has in common with all other saleable items on the farm. 7. When Bessie is referred to as an 'asset' still more of her characteristics are left out. 8. The word 'wealth' is an extremely high level of abstraction, omitting almost all reference to the characteristics of Bessie. (McKim 1972, 128; the origins of this example are in Korzybski, via Hayakawa 1941, 121ff)

Holy shit. This is extremely helpful to my sandwich research. I suppose the main message of what is being said here is that certain words operate on different levels of abstraction of the physical object - “abstraction” in this case meaning how many characteristics of the object are being referred to or having attention called to them. The smaller the number of characteristics, the higher the level of abstraction.

Also worth mentioning is that the more “general” a term is (i.e. the more physical objects that it could reasonably refer to), the higher the level of abstraction it operates on (due to the number of characteristics shared between all possible objects being smaller). It’s like a Venn diagram. The more circles involved, the smaller the overlapping portion in the centre. (However, this raises another question, how do you determine whether a term refers to a particular word in the first place - this is the question when asking if a hot dog is a sandwich) 

Another thing I’d like to note is that in the above “levels” of abstraction, it feels like a nested abstraction. The word “cow” groups and refers to characteristics shared by the individual objects themselves, but the word “livestock” groups and refers to characteristics shared by more specific words that fall under its umbrella, and does not refer to characteristics shared by the individual objects themselves.

If I made a burger and called it “Florbimo”, when I use the word “Florbimo” I am referring to all of its characteristics. When I use the word “burger” to refer to Florbimo, I am calling attention to the characteristics that it shares with other objects that people refer to as “burgers”. When I use the word “sandwich” to refer to Florbimo, I am calling attention to the characteristics that it shares with all other objects that people refer to as “sandwiches”.

Here’s a Kirby oc, buddy! Buddy comes from a collaborative AU called Burgerquest that my friends and I made. So they are technically a shared custody oc. Buddy uses he/they pronouns.

Buddy is sort of a mixed concept, but the main jist is that he’s a shapeshifter that accompanies Kirby on adventures- more specifically,they represent the helpers in Kirby super star/ultra, the robobot armor in planet robobot, and the first ally slot in Star Allies. (The yellow slot.)

(I gave the droppy arms.)

Buddy was originally a droppy from the mirror world who decided to leave after seeing Kirby and co adventure in Amazing Mirror.

after the escape, he joins Kirby in Super Star (Ultra) and uses their shapeshifting ability to become Kirby’s helper! Throughout the game, he takes different forms. (As I was playing through everything, I thought consolidating the helpers down into one character for my playthrough would make it easier for me to write them. And then I got attached lol)

Here’s a gijinka I made for KSSU era buddy!

During the Haltmann invasion, Buddy was captured and mechanized to become the robobot armor! They can still shapeshift in this form, although it’s quite limited, and they also can’t really move much on his own. He gets better though! Mostly. In burgerquest lore, he had to stay partially mechanized in order to keep the timeline stable. @getallemeralds has a design for this somewhere! This partial mechanization allows them to easily shapeshift into robotic forms.

Buddy also tags along for Star Allies, where he gets to know some of the dream friends. After the events of super star, he strongly distrusts Marx, but was able to become friends with Magolor. He also doesn’t like Susie for robobot reasons. They also like gooey a whole lot!

Being a shapeshifter, he has many forms, and he doesn’t really have one they use more than others. Their most common/notable forms are his base droppy form, brown kirby, and rocky.

Well burger #2 is down the hatch and we’re happy to report that our project is getting better already!

We chose The Public House, ahem, The Old Whisky Mill (why this name was changed we will never understand.  What is a whisky mill, anyway?  We digress. . .), as stop number two on our great burger quest and we left prettyyyyy impressed.  For whatever reason we always forget about this restaurant and rarely patronize it, but this experience has left us wanting to pay it more mind.  That said (and this will be the last irrelevant aside—promise), the new management’s decision to remove the white paper table covers was a grave mistake.  But luckily that has no bearing on whether the kitchen is on its burger game.  Because it is!

The Traditional at the Whisky Mill is described as a “WA raised natural beef burger” with a choice of Swiss, Jack, or cheddar, and served with lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle.  Traditional indeed.  Though if one is feeling fancy (for many pennies more) bacon, Danish bleu, fried jalapenos, a double patty, or a fried egg can be added.  Not that you would, but were you to add all of the above to your burger you’d be in for one terribly overindulgent and likely overwhelming meal.  We took our own advice and kept it simple.  Here was our order: Two Traditionals, one with cheddar, one with bleu.  One with fries, one with a Caesar salad.  One rare, one medium rare.   We split them both, ate them both.

(Our burgers: pleasantly paired with a Rainier and a Goose Island Matilda.)

This is definitely worth noting, as last time neither of us were able to finish our burgers despite our ravenous hunger and historical inability to leave leftovers for fear that they might get lonely or feel unwanted (yes, this is a thing).  Both burgers: eaten.  Let’s start with the low point since we’ve already alluded to the good.  Both patties were overcooked.  Had they not been, these burgs would have been tops!  They were seasoned well, definitely hand-formed, not pre-frozen, and very tasty.  Huzzah!  The only other low was the bun, which was an abomination of grainy dryness and barely even tried to stand up to the burger by doing its job and holding everything together.  It was breaking apart all over the place!  But luckily that’s it for the bad.  On to the good:

The sandwich’s spread was not described on the menu, but we interpreted it to be some kind of a green onion mayo.  The flavor was subtle (too subtle to stand up to the Danish bleu) but complimented the burger’s patty and veg quite nicely.  Its quantity was balanced (and necessary) as it moistened an otherwise dry bun and compensated for the minimal juice expelled by our overcooked patties.  (The rare orderer among us wants their burger dripping).

The cheddar cheese was sharp but not pungent.  A brand was not noted on the menu but it certainly tasted stronger than the alleged Tillamook on our last burgers.  We mentioned that the bleu was too strong for the spread, but it didn’t completely overpower the burger; the meat was still flavorful, as were the accoutrements.  Nice green lettuce, totally decent-despite-being-out-of-season tomato, appropriately portioned red onion, great crinkle-cut pickle.  Crunch.  Tang.  Put it in the bun, or leave it off: they trust you to make that decision for yourself.

Let’s take a moment to talk sides.  As stated in our project rules, we are not judging establishments on their sides.  That said, a good fry is always worth noting.  With our first burger we neglected to order fries, as we weren’t in the mood and thought it unnecessary.  We regret that decision.  If you’re really talking burgers—and we really are—you can’t ignore the fries.  So this time we got fries.  And they were good.  That’s all we’ll say about that.  The Caesar was also unexpectedly delicious with an anchovy-forward dressing that generously coated each and every forkful.  But maybe there was too much dressing because by the end of the meal the salad already had the consistency of being day-old, which, incidentally, is some people’s jam.  

Either way, sides or no sides, Ye Olde Whisky Mill makes a mighty fine burger.  We will definitely be back.  But until then: any suggestions on where to go next?  Lay ‘em on us!  

normally i'm ambivalent on the "Galacta Knight is actually Kirby" theory but there is ONE EXCEPTION and it's Burgerquest because Aubz hit me with the stick of "have emotions about the futility of your own existence and the inability to stop the mistakes your past self is cluelessly making"