When he’s not ordering a rack of ribs so large it can flip over a car, Fred Flintstone’s favorite Jurassic comfort food is the trusty Brontosaurus burger.
A Brontosaurus burger looks pretty much like a modern hamburger, and the Brontosaurus — a dull-witted, lumbering beast with an abundance of meat on its bones — appears to be the prehistoric equivalent of a cow.
But does that mean the two taste the same? And what would a Brontosaurus burger taste like anyway?
According to Dr. Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, “Brontosaurus would taste like some kind of fragrant, delicious gamey cross between chicken and venison. That’s pure speculation, but my reasoning is this: Brontosaurus was a plant-eater, and back when it lived in the Jurassic Period, there were no grasses or any plants with fruits or flowers, so it would have subsisted on evergreen trees and similar plants. This would have been reflected in the taste of its meat, just like you can taste the prairie in grass-fed bison burgers, or the whisper of juniper or pine in some gamey venison.”
“Birds today are the descendants of dinosaurs, and the only living members of the dinosaur family tree,” he continues. “Crocodiles are the closest living non-bird cousins to dinosaurs. If you’ve eaten gator, it kind of tastes like chicken. So it makes the most logical sense that Brontosaurus would have tasted something like chicken too, if its closest living relatives had this flavor.”
As for how to prepare Brontosaurus, burger chef Rich Cambriello, founder of the food truck Daddy’s Bonetown Burgers in Boston, says, “If a Brontosaurus burger is going to taste gamey and like chicken, the best way to look at it is like it’s chicken. You might be tempted to go back to the dinosaur age and serve it with those herbs and leaves and stuff, but he’s already eating all that, so you already have those flavors.
“Instead, I’d go with arugula, to get that nice, lemony, peppery taste to complement the meat. Then add some heirloom tomato and a blood orange aioli because the acidity and that funky little spice from the Brontosaurus will blend nicely. For cheese, go with Colby Jack because it’s the sexiest of cheeses. I’d definitely add applewood smoked bacon, too, because it’s always a go-to for any protein. For the bun, I like potato rolls because they’re hearty and can hold up to any protein you put in there. Finally, serve it with fries — either traditional, sweet potato or yucca, which are much lighter than regular fries.”
Well, there you have it. Next week, I’ll be talking to a guy from Maytag about how to convert your wooly mammoth into a dishwasher.
