With the Most American of Holidays behind us, we have little to look forward to during the doldrums of summer but the Most American of Pastimes: Eating.

To celebrate both, Serious Eats put together a map of the iconic burger of each state — and it’s a good one. Featuring California’s In-N-Out Double-Double Animal Style, Minnesota’s Juicy Lucy, Kansas’ White Castle sliders, Texas’ Whataburger, this map nails it.

Mostly. Because this doesn’t make sense to me.

frybread_burger.png
  • Serious Eats

Why yes, that is a frybread-wrapped burger.

I won’t lie to you Tucson: I’ve never had one of those. Frybread, sure — it’s what ruins my shirts and gets my hands all sticky every time I go to the State Fair — but a burger wrapped in frybread is new to me.

Now, I won’t go out and say that this is a travesty, that Diablo Burger should take the crown (though I’m enough of a fan that apparently some of the waitresses recognize me — I should probably lay low for a few months), blah blah blah. It’s fine.

I just think that there’s way, WAY more to Arizona’s burgers than frybread (hell, we could even through BurgerRito into the mix, new as they are).

I will say though: If anyone is willing to point me in the direction of a quality frybread burger, I’ll give it a shot.

[Serious Eats – United States of Burgers]

This article appears in Jul 4-10, 2013.

8 replies on “Apparently, Arizona’s Iconic Burger is Wrapped in Frybread”

  1. The San Juan Inn in Mexican Hat, Utah offers a roast beast and cheese sandwich in fry bread. Marvelous. I bet it would work with a burger too. Sigh…

  3. The Serious Eats writer admits to using their creative license to invent burgers for some of the states, and the Frybread Burger may well be one of those. I’m not a beef eater, but I still enjoy a good non-beef burger. My favorites are the turkey burger at McMahon’s Steakhouse on North Swan and the Veggie Burger at the Voyager on South Kolb. If anyone knows where I can find a good turkey or veggie burger on frybread, I’d love to give it a try.

  4. Bonnie, I noticed that, though I figured they were leaning on creative license more with their references to West Virgina’s game burgers, or Alaska’s moose burger.

    As I said, I’m all for more suggestions on where one could get a frybread burger anywhere in the Tucson (or hell, Phoenix) areas. At the very least, it sounds like an adventure.

  5. I emailed Serious Eats and got an almost immediate reply. They attributed the choice to whimsy, the popularity of fry bread in the state and the fact that there were photos on line (although they admitted most of the fry bread burgers they found were at home versions.)

    I told them I write them back with better choices. I’m going to suggest Monkey Burger, Lindy’s and ZinBurger.

    Any others? And since this is an Arizona thing maybe some ideas from other places besides Tucson would be a great idea.

  6. Flagstaff and Tucson’s Diablo Burger, of course — that one has had far too few mentions on their sister site, A Hamburger Today.

  7. Go to any mutton stand on the Navajo reservation and order a Navajo burger, otherwise known as a frybread burger.
    This is totally legit and does exist…and is delicious.

  8. Carrie, I’m sure it’s legit but if so few people have heard of this burger I don’t think it’s the right choice. I’ll try one though, any time.

Comments are closed.