For sale: 19-month-old burger and fries
LIKE a fine wine or a ripening cheese, Luke Dell’s framed cheeseburger and fries will only improve with age, he reckons.
Bored one evening in February 2021, the Nelson artist and framer made a bespoke frame for the McDonald’s food items. Then, he hung the piece in his workshop at Nelson City Framers on Halifax St, and waited.
‘‘The first week it grew a little bit of mould, from where my finger held it, but then the cheeseburger took over and killed it. It’s very stable now,’’ Dell said.
Now, Dell has sold the business, and is moving to
Golden Bay with wife Amy and their children. While he’s planning to stay involved in the gallery, working with the new owner, it was time to let the culinary work go. The piece is now listed on TradeMe – despite investment advice from Dell’s brother.
‘‘My brother tried to tell me not to sell it, to wait until it was 10 years old; someone could be in for a serious investment.
‘‘[But] I just want it to go to a good home, where someone will look after it. It could be a bit like a fine wine or cheese; [time] could improve it.’’
Other than framing jet plane lollies, it was the first time Dell had put food behind glass.
While not intended as an art piece, interpretation was down to the individual, he said. ‘‘Art is what it is, it isn’t right or wrong.’’
While undeniably vintage as far as perishable food goes, the burger is a mere infant compared to similar experiments conducted around the world.
In 2019, two Australian men unveiled a Quarter Pounder they’d bought in 1995 as teenagers. They’d kept the food item in a shed, and referred to it as their ‘‘mate’’, reported several news outlets. And in 2020, a US man revealed a McDonald’s hamburger he’d bought in 1999. The 20-year-old burger looked like it was ‘‘only a day or two old’’, reported KUTV news.
The everlasting burger had not put him off McDonald’s food,
Dell said. Once or twice, there had even been talk in the workshop about eating the burger.
‘‘We’ve thought about it. I think you’d be safe, it looks pretty sterile. But I’d prefer a fresh burger.’’