The Slinger

Diner Food: The Slinger.

I took it upon myself to make the Wikipedia entry for Slinger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slinger. Why did I do this? I did this because I have no life and simply had nothing else to do. I did this because in MY sad little world it seemed important. On the bright side I am NOT responsible for the Wikipedia entry for Troy Missouri but this is little solace. The slinger is unique St. Louis breakfast food. We celebrate things that are unique in St. Louis because other then the Arch (only National Monument dedicated to people who had the sense to leave St. Louis) and the Anhueser Busch Brewery there is very little here that you could not find in some other backwater town in fly over country.

Scranton has scrapple, Philadelphia has the cheese steak, Miami has cuban sandwiches, Minnesota (I know we are talking about cities but there are not that many people up there) has ludefisk (sp) , Chicago even claims sausages but we have the slinger. The slinger is well respected. Referenced in Gourmet Foods Magazine column “Road Food.” The slinger will heal our nations wounds as it heals a drunks hangover and it will do it in an elegant way with frequent trips to the bathroom. The slinger can be found at almost EVERY St. Louis diner. A real slinger (this author holds) can only be made with Edmunds chili. A real slinger should have no beans. A real slinger is made with white onions cut into chunks on Monday and kept in a walk in all week waiting their use and gaining...character. When you have a stranger come to town you should take them to a diner and order s slinger.

Once they leave the restroom they will thank you. Maybe.


THIS FROM THE WEB:
Not to give the idea that St. Louis is just a town where people sit around and think of fucked up ways to eat food, but since we're on the topic of interesting local fare anyway of course I had to mention the infamous Slinger.
As far as I know, this is another one of those things - like Chinese food + white bread - that never really spread outside of the STL, though I've had my share of them in Cape Giradeau, MO, about two hours south of here.
An Internets search turned up next to jack shit, so I'm not gonna be able to tell you much about where or how exactly this originated, but a Slinger is basically a hamburger covered with eggs, hash browns and chili. Depending on where you go, it might all be covered with either shredded or liquid 7-11 nachos-style cheese.

It's also worth noting that a) This is not usually the best quality eggs, hamburger and chili to begin with, but b) You can usually get a shiteload of it (like 3lbs worth) for like $4, which helps make up for the questionable quality of said ingredients. And it's the rare occasion when you don't puke it all up an hour later anyway.



This from Sauce Magazine:
The slinger 

Although one tale about the origins of the slinger claims that Irish immigrants settling in St. Louis during the potato famine created the dish as a way to bury the spud under a heaping pile of ingredients, Courtesy Diner owner Larry Rugg has never heard of that story. “It’s just always been around,” he said. 

Courtesy Diner, with two locations in South City, offers a number of variations on the traditional recipe. “The regular slinger is two eggs, hash browns, a hamburger patty and chili,” Rugg said. “Most people also ask for Cheddar cheese and chopped onion. The real die-hards get the Super Slinger, which has either a beef burrito or a tamale on top. We probably sell most of them during the third shift. It’s really popular with the bar crowd.” 

Tamales and burritos have always been a slinger staple at the Courtesy Diner. “A lot of places don’t carry tamales and burritos, so I’m not sure you could get it the same way anywhere else,” Rugg said.

The thing about the Slinger is that it is more important as an idea than a food. It is beyond typical comprehension that you could eat this combination of "foods" and survive. It is an act of will. An act of faith. In college when we did stupid things like this I had an idiot aquaintance who would howl "quienes mas machos?" Which he told me meant who is the macho one? Indeed.