Pass the Monster Meat, Milady!

Episode 9

Oklahoma is the bafflingly proud home of the onion burger. Onion burgers are more or less exactly what they sound like: A burger with a pretty onion-forward onion-to-meat ratio (different chefs and recipes will give you different rates, but the point is that they're much more onion-y than regular burgers) that was invented in El Reno (about half an hour's drive from Oklahoma City) during the early 1920s. The train of thought was, “the sheer volume of onions at least give the burger the illusion of being bigger than it really is,” which helped their popularity really pop off during the Great Depression because they didn't require as much beef as regular burgers (because, well, it was made up for in having so much onion).

If you're an onion hater like me, they're utterly inedible (which is considered Oklahoman sacrilege, but I digress). But if you can—somehow—tolerate so much onion, I'm told they're great. I can think of at least one onion burger restaurant in Oklahoma that's been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and I'll vouch: I don't think I've ever passed by Nic's without seeing a massive line. Not often, but I've seen onion burgers a scant few times in restaurants in other states, too (in at least one case, it was called an “Oklahoma Burger” so that was neat). I don't know how well they sell outside of Oklahoma, but the fact that I can recall having seen them outside of Oklahoma at all implies that, however steadily, they're starting to breach containment. Meanwhile in Oklahoma, on the other hand, onion burgers are a longstanding institution. Broadly speaking, Oklahomans are—and for a long time, have been—all about them.

I bring this up because this episode left me feeling reminded of the onion burger. Namely, this week we quickly learn that animism basically doesn't exist in the Galbraith lands. Still, people are nonetheless hesitant to eat monster meat—presumably, it's some combination of it just sounding disgusting and reminding them of the famine. These reasons make so much more sense than animism. And if animism's presence in the series was going to be so short-lived, I can't help but wonder why it was ever here in the first place, but whatever. Nonetheless, it's through the onion burger that we can understand that the negative association that can come with being a Depression-era—or in the case of MM, Famine-era—food is something that can be overcome. So this week, I was just left thinking: “Ah, Melphiera is basically just trying to sell everyone on onion burgers in places unfamiliar with onion burgers.”

Or at least, she would be trying to sell everyone on onion burgers if she was actually making anything. I could be wrong about this, but at this point, I think episodes where she's prepared a new monster meat dish have been in the minority—and if not the minority, it's a pretty even split with ones where she hasn't. Wasn't her sharing her love of monster meat with everyone (and Aristide in particular) supposed to be the whole point of the series?

Lately, I find myself missing the optimism I had for this series toward the beginning of its run. The concept is fun and Delicious in Dungeon-esque, our main couple is adorable and has delightful chemistry, and the first few episodes made it seem like it'd just be a cute, fluffy romance where two outcasts bond over their shared love of unconventional cuisine—and also about preparing said unconventional cuisine itself. But as the series has gone on, it's just fallen so flat. The writing is clumsy and trying way too hard; this is maybe the first week we've had where the animation wasn't worse than it was the week before (not because it looked good this week, but simply because last week was such a rock bottom moment for MM), the action scenes feel so bland and forgettable, and I can feel myself caring less and less week after week. It doesn't feel right calling MM the biggest disappointment of the season, per se, knowing that One Punch Man season 3 has been a mess of spectacular proportions. Still, “disappointing” has started being the word that springs to mind when I think about MM.

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Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.