BUCKET LIST: The Montana Burger Trail
Eating your way across America
You have to hand it to the marketing genius who came up with this one: want people to visit some of the most out of the way parts of a large and under-populated state? Voila. The Southeast Montana Burger Trail is born.
It's a real thing, and is as ingenious as it sounds. 25 small diners and restaurants from Billings to Ekalaka, the brainchild of the Visit SE Montana Tourist Board. The Burger Trail spans some of the most desolate territory of our country, where cows outnumber people 10 or 20 to 1. Wanna bring more people in? The Burger Trail was born.
The cowboy culinary creativity has gone completely unchecked. It’s many hundreds of miles long. And on The Trail you'll find staples such as the Buffalo Burger, the Nacho Cheese Elk Burger, Green Fried Tomato Burger, Jalapeno-Aioli Burger, a Stuffed Jalapeno-Popper Burger. Keep driving and you get a Peanut Butter and Egg Burger. But the Mango Burger? In Montana? Then, the Broken Knuckle Burger, down the road from cheeseburgers with Fire-Roasted BlackBerry sauce.
But what about the MOAB? (Mother of All Burgers, of course) and who wouldn't wanna go hundreds of miles across the prairies to try The Doc Holiday, “loaded with I'm Your Huckleberry chutney.”
It’s free to join. You can download the Burger Trail Pass and Info here . Each time you stop in somewhere, you check in on your Pass. After four burgers you get a sticker. Eight burgers and you earn the title of “Burger Boss” and they send you a free T-shirt. Like I said, Bucket List material.
No doubt you'll be a road warrior cruising across Montana, eating burgers. You're going through some of the great range country in America, and that's the appeal. You're in some of the least visited corners of America, surrounded by ranches and cattle, with a culinary adventure at every stop.
Well, not to be outdone, the Tourism Board of Central Montana created the Pie Trail. Pie A-La-Road in Montana! And after a quick Internet search, I see that trails are prevalent. New Mexico has The Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail, and it only gets better from there. The Potato Trail? In Idaho. The “World Famous Salsa Trail” is right here in Arizona. I never knew! The Margarita Trail, Santa Fe. The Pizza Trail, New Jersey. The Macon Bacon Trail, Georgia. The Oyster Trail, North Carolina. Buffalo Wing Trail, Buffalo. North Alabama BBQ Trail, and one I've actually been on followed myself, at least in part, the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky.
From time to time we serve up tidbits about food in these letters, because we all love food, some of us try to cook food, and I've written a series of four fun books about a 13 year old mastermind Chef. (It’s reached Number One on Amazon, in the Children’s Cook-Books category.) Every child alive who reads ZIN MIGNON will forever think differently about food, their relationship with food, the kitchen, their family, and the culinary possibilities that come from behind a stove. Give ZIN MIGNON a try!
Saying that, some new exciting developments in the food world include…
Oreo Coca Cola? And Coca Cola Oreos?? They’re both real, thanks to a new partnership between Oreo and Coke .
How about this one. I admit to being a long-suffering Arizona Cardinals football fan. We had season tickets for 10 years. The food concessions at Cardinal Stadium were never special, but maybe that’s changing. For your gastronomic pleasure, you may now watch the game as you eat a Cotton Candy Burrito. Destined to be a staple in ballparks around the country.
Doritos has entered the space age and have brought us "Zero Gravity Chips" . They come in glow-in-the-dark packaging and are suitable for astronauts on spaceships, moon trips and the space station because they don't break into little fragments and they leave no dust that can float around your capsule. They’ll debut on SpaceX soon. You may try some too, after a donation to Saint Jude's Children’s Hospital where you can then enter a raffle .
And finally, something that never gets old, the Guinness people have officially certified the world's oldest bottle of Cognac. From 1696. This is pre-revolution… that’s both the American and French revolutions. It’s a bottle of Jules Robin Cognac, distilled when Louis the 14th ruled France and Peter the Great reigned over Russia. Owned by a collector in the Netherlands, it remains fully intact with original cork and wax seal. The bottle edged out one from 1720. So it’s either some really fine sippin’, or some nasty nasty vinegar. World's oldest Cognac.
Thank you very much for reading, sharing, commenting. We'll get back to books one of these days.
Michael Daswick
Flagstaff, AZ