PRODUCT: George Foreman 5-Minute Burger
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Today is National Cheeseburger Day; here’s a way to make them faster, with less mess. First, a public service announcement: If only Americans would eat fewer burgers. It would be better for health, better for the environment, better for the pocketbook, better for animal welfare. But that’s wishful thinking. So if you’ve got a burger habit, now it’s easier than ever to cook them at home. The new George Foreman 5-Minute Burger cooks the meat 50% faster and makes clean-up easy. Any child allowed near a hot appliance can use it. |
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The advantages are great; we have just one caveat: It doesn’t cook two adult-size burgers. The two burgers shown in the photo are kid-size. We were able to fit one four-inch patty (we bought them pre-shaped from the store) on the plate; the second one would have fallen partially outside the borders. We’re not complaining: It’s still a terrific way to cook burgers if you don’t need to do it in quantity. And if you hand-make your own patties, it’s not an issue. The grill launched this summer at Walmart for $24.99. We found it on Amazon for $29.02 (and received ours as a test sample). George Foreman did not create the George Foreman grill. He lucked out, earning more from his endorsement of it than from his celebrated boxing career. When the inventor, Michael Boehm of Batavia, Illinois, pitched his product to manufacturers, it was called The Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine. He proposed heavyweight champion George Foreman as the spokesperson. Foreman was well-known for eating two reduced-fat hamburgers before every fight. Boehm sent a prototype of the grill to Foreman, who loved it. Salton signed on as the manufacturer and the appliance launched in 1994. The George Foreman Grill (there are now several designs) sold more than 100 million units in the first 15 years. Foreman himself was paid $137 million by Salton in 1999 for the use of his name. Prior to that, Wikipedia reports that he earned 40% of the profit on each grill sold—$4.5 million a month at the peak. [Source] |
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