He can’t get his mind (or mouth) around burgeoning burgers

It looked great, but I couldn’t get my mouth around it, so I tried smashing it down with one hand. Ketchup, mustard and mayo oozed out onto my other hand.

As far as I know there’s no research on the size of American mouths, but they must be getting larger.

That’s the only conclusion to be drawn from the current big burger boom; sandwiches that used to merely take two hands to handle now require two hands, 12 napkins and a mouth the size of a hippo.

The other day, for instance, I stopped at a franchise restaurant known for its sandwiches and ordered a burger.

“Did you want the Freight Train Burger?” the server asked. “What’s that?” “Five beef patties, two cheddar crisps, four bacon slices, pickles, tomato slices, pickled red onions, lettuce, and three kinds of sauces on a brioche bun.”

“I don’t think I could eat all that.”

“Well, if you did you’d get your picture posted in our restaurant and on social media.”

“And I’d l probably get my picture posted on my cardiologist’s office wall, too. Maybe I should get something a little smaller.”

“How about the Train Wreck Burger? Prime rib beef, cheese, fried egg, caramelized onions, sautéed mushrooms and thousand island sauce.”

“Don’t you just have plain old cheeseburgers? “I’ll check.” Eventually she brought me a sandwich consisting of a burger the size of a small meatloaf, with cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo in a bun that was taller than it was wide.

It looked great, but I couldn’t get my mouth around it, so I tried smashing it down with one hand. Ketchup, mustard and mayo oozed out onto my other hand.

I wiped off my hand with a napkin and tried nibbling at the front edge of the bun.

The burger slithered out the back edge of the bun and landed in my other hand.

I wiped off that hand with two more napkins.

At that point I had a burger on the plate, a bun with nothing left in it but lettuce, two sticky hands and a pile of soggy napkins.

I wound up eating the whole mess with a knife and fork.

I’m not sure when our burgers started becoming bigger than our mouths.

But several years ago I went to a place in Arizona called the Heart Attack Grill, where the house specialty was an artery-clogger called the Quadruple Bypass Burger: four half-pound beef patties, eight slices of cheese, 9,982 calories and approximately eight inches tall.

In a Pittsburgh football stadium, I encountered the Pitts-Burgher Cheese Steak: burger, fries, cheese, coleslaw and tomato between thick slices of white bread.

Or maybe it goes all the way back to my childhood, when Big Boy sandwiches in Cleveland were advertised as, “A meal in one on a double deck bun.”

Today a meal in one probably would be a Big Mac between two Whoppers.