Susan Smith: A Birthday for Big Mac, another burger for Don

Originally published Sept. 14, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Is there something about junk food that brings out the obsessiveness? I only ask because, right in time for the 40th birthday of the Big Mac, word comes from our friends at the Fond du Lac Reporter that local resident Don Gorske has now eaten more than 23,000 Big Macs since he started gobbling them one a day in May 1972.

Now, I got a little sick of Don, or maybe sick from thinking about what his insides must look like, because my media pals would write about him at nearly every burger milestone. Frankly, I was waiting for his obituary, which would like show clogging of the ateries as a cause.

But now, finally, comes the reason he has not only eaten a burger a day, but also saved every burger receipt in a box. Gorske told the newspaper he has obsessive complusive disorder, and that his addiction springs as much from a love of counting things as a desire for greasy burger. He keeps all his receipts, too. Apparently, those numbers on the sign that track how many burgers McDonald's has served inspired him to count his own consumption.

Now, I could make fun of this except for this: Two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed-bun.

What's that? It's a McDonald's Big Mac jingle from the 1970s, and it's still stuck in my head. Back then, if you went to a McDonald's, and could recite the ingredient jingle, you got a free Big Mac. I did it. And it was so long ago that there wasn't even a McDonald's in Fort Atkinson -- Imagine, a town too small for McDonald's! -- so we had to travel to Whitewater to sing the song and get the free burger. The weird thing is that I haven't had more than a few Big Macs in my life, and none in the last decade, yet the jingle will likely be with me until death.

So look down on Don Gorske and his burger madness, if you like, but remember that there's probably a crazed Hamburglar hiding out in every one of us.

Susan Smith: Fort Atkinson’s Brat Man -- have grill will travel

Originally published July 10, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

FORT ATKINSON – Dale Romens has a job other Wisconsin guys dream about.

Last year, right after Christmas, he and the lovely “Miss Alice” headed south from his Fort Atkinson home, bound for what sounds like a tough work schedule.

First, they motored into Tampa for the Outback Bowl, where the Wisconsin Badgers took on the Volunteers of Tennessee. No time to dwell on Wisconsin’s narrow loss, because they were expected next at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

After that, it’s kind of a blur. There were bass fishing contests, some NASCAR races, the San Antonio Cowboy Breakfast and the premiere of the “Speed Racer” movie in Los Angeles. Somehow, he managed to make it back East to the Baltimore Orioles Opening Day.

It was May before he finally made it home to Fort Atkinson and his wife, Sue. Doesn’t this party boy lifestyle make her a bit ornery?

“No,’’ he said, “Bratwurst pays the bills.”

Wherever there’s a party, Romens shows up with the brats. A half ton of them. And the grill. The really, really “Big Taste Grill,’’ billed as the “World’s Largest Grill. Period.” It can grill 750 bratwurst at a time, or 2,500 an hour.

“Miss Alice” is the truck that pulls the 53,000-pound grill, named for the Queen of Bratwurst herself, Alice Stayer of Johnsonville bratwurst fame.

Back in 1945, Alice and Ralph Stayer bought a little meat market in the Sheboygan County community of Johnsonville. The idea for their famous bratwurst was born at a festival, when Ralph, known as RF, noticed people were tossing half-eaten sausages in the trash. He knew he could create a tastier sausage, and the rest, they say, is sausage history.

One upon a time, bratwurst were an ethic food, known to the Germans and those who lived near them. Now, says Romens, they’re popular everywhere. In fact, one of his favorite events is the cowboy breakfast in San Antonio, where the hearty Texans downed 12,000 before the sun was high in the sky.

His biggest event, bratwurst-wise, is the one closest to home. Madison’s World’s Biggest Bratfest broke its own record this year, with 191,712 sausages consumed, many of them cooked on the world’s biggest traveling grill.

But there was no time to rest, as Romens began packing up the grill on Memorial Day for a trip west, which began in St. Louis. After that, he’s got a western swing that will take him to Fleet Week in San Francisco, the Great Reno Balloon Race, and up into Canada, with stops in Calgary and Vancouver.

He’s been driving truck “for 40 years without hitting anybody.” The last eight he’s been driving “Miss Alice” for Johnsonville, which he says is definitely his most fun job.

After all those miles, and all those sausages, is he sick of bratwurst?

No way.

“I still eat them,’’ Romens said. “Not everyday. But I eat them.”

PHOTO INFORMATION: Dale Romens spreads the joy of Wisconsin bratwurst at events throughout the country, like this recent promotional event at the Bass Pro Shop in St. Charles, Mo./PHOTO by Roy Sykes