Coca-Cola and its early Seventies Gourmet Burgers

I was recently browsing through some old Coca-Cola print ads when I stumbled across and add that suggested pairing your Coca-Cola with fancy burgers. This idea is pretty common now, but this ad was from the early 1970s. It is full of fanciful burgers, some of which you will recognize, and others that will make you scratch your head.

Even though most have familiar flavors and food pairings, they all have that less sophisticated assembly that you find in pre-eighties cookbooks and food advertising. That can make food look less palatable by today’s standards.

I know the suspense is killing you, so allow me to present to you the Coca-Cola Fancy Burgers of the early seventies.

Dixie Belle Burger

I guess the Dixie Belle burger is supposed to represent the Southern United States and as everyone who lives in the ol’ U.S of A knows, when you think of the South you think of a slice of tomato and burned mayonnaise. I am really not sure what to make of that flourish, I have never purposefully browned mayonnaise. From its name, I imagine the flavor will whisk you away to the golden days of riverboat cruising on the wide rivers of yesteryear.

Dill burger

I like the sound of the dill burger, although I am not sure about whipped cream cheese on a hot burger, my experience with cheese spreads on burgers is that they tend to liquefy. Still, I like the flavor combo and appreciate the bed of pickles even if they don’t mention it in the description.

Ched Salad burger

The Chef Salad Burger with its julienned ham, cheese, turkey and green peppers is maybe the oddest prepared of these burgers. It seems clever, but this sideways Jenga stack of nonsense will be falling out after the first bite.

Cheeseburger

I feel like a cheeseburger here is a cop-out. While it is one of my favorite foods, it has no place in the ragtag batch of burger experiments. I will say, that stump of a pickle is impressive! It’s almost a burger unto itself.

Pizza Burger

What a sad looking creation. I mean each ingredient taken on its own is pretty good and I imagine this might taste good, but the unmelted mozzarella, dollop of sauce and pile of dried oregano does not look very appealing. Also, why are they not mentioning the onion? That is kind of a big deal.

Bacon burger

Bacon is promised and delivered on this rather modern burger. The one problem? Those sliced cherry tomatoes. No way they are going to stay on this burger. They will most certainly eject onto your lap as the burger makes the trip from the plate to your mouth.

Bavarian Burger

The Bavarian burger, like the Bacon burger, seems a pretty decent idea, but then they choose this weird form factor for that pickle. Either it is going to slip out or 60% of your burger eating will be pickle free.

California Burger

The California burger is the least California food I have seen with the name California in it. For one, where is the heaping pile of avocado or bean sprouts. This is almost the same as the Dixie Belle burger with just the some additional lettuce at the bottom and no browning of the mayo.

I think the more apt description for this California burger would be the Hamburger.

Here is the ad in which these burgers appeared in its full-page glory.

Now that I know about these burgers, I think I need to give a couple of them a try. Especially the ones that are fairly unique, like the Dixie Belle and Dill burgers.

What do you think? Do any of them appeal to you? Have you had them before?