what makes a whopper a whopper?

*disclaimer: the author of this piece is by no means a Burger King disciple (I’m more of a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger person, and the real ones know)

According to the Official Burger King Twitter, the Impossible Whopper was slung out to flame-grills nationwide in August of 2019. Faint reminders of this announcement floated around in my mind, but never manifested until this April 2022. I’ve tasted Impossible Burgers in “hip”, “modern” sit-down burger joints before without sinking my teeth into much disappointment, so maybe I set my expectations to an unfair standard.

Don’t get me wrong - it’s not a terrible burger. Biting into it the first time, I was not meticulously critiquing the taste and texture of the patty itself to that from a real cow. In fact, my first thoughts were approximately oh and then is this what a Whopper tastes like?

I warned you up front so you couldn’t be upset with me - I can’t tell you the last time I’ve ordered and eaten a regular Whopper. So eating the Impossible Whopper became less of a compare-contrast and more a question of identity - is a Whopper a Whopper because of Burger King’s signature flame-grilled beef patty at its core? Or is a Whopper defined by the arrangement of buns, tomato, pickles, lettuce, onions, and mayo likely outlined in a step-by-step order that I probably just screwed up, printed on a single sheet, laminated in at least one Burger King of the world as an instructional for new hires? Obviously, Burger King tried to decide that for us by naming my Thursday night dinner the Impossible Whopper, but we know better than to just trust what is advertised to us.

I couldn’t help but wonder if each person’s answer to this piece’s title told something about their character, like the interpretation of a psychologist’s ink blobs I’ve only seen in movies, or the question of which out of five animals to keep that I only just read about - the unfamiliarity of these scenarios not enough to stop me from imagining my own choices, and the meaning behind each.

I decided for myself that Thursday that if someone handed me the meatless meal and asked me its identity, I would deem it a Whopper. I’m sure some portion of my decision comes from grappling with my own identity - hobbies piled haphazardly in both the physical and theoretical sense, career skills still in their first iteration, questioning their future and place in the world, still young but each day losing more credibility to blame indecision on my youth (as Phoebe Bridgers once similarly put it) - I have to hope that these pieces of me, no matter how small or new, are who I am. That there is no one characteristic I need and currently lack in that will define my identity, legacy, memory. That the mere attempt to try is enough, and that I can only grow into myself more as time goes on. And I’m sure another portion of my decision was just my unfamiliarity with the taste of a real Whopper - truthfully I think I realized in that moment that flame-grilled is just not for me, but I’ll give it a few more tries, maybe it’ll grow on me too.

April 16, 2022