Volcanoes.

This is a guy’s recipe from a restaurant in the Quad Cities (Iowa/Illinois) area. It sounds disgusting, and it’s bad for you. I like them.

• One loaf Texas Toast.
  

• 1 – 1 1/2 lbs. hamburger
  

• 1 large can of Hormel chili (or about 2 c. leftover chili)
  

• 1 bag of frozen hash browns (loose style) or french fries.
  

• 2c. cheese sauce (not cheese whiz, but Ragu, or Velveeta with milk, butter, and a little flour–mac and cheese sauce)
  

• 1c. chopped yellow or white onion
  

• Salt and pepper.
  
  

Warm the over to about 200 degrees F. Brown, separately, the hash browns (or fries) and the hamburger. Warm the chili and the cheese sauce. The hash browns will take forever; transfer each batch to the oven on a cookie sheet. As soon as the last batch of hash browns is almost done, make the toast. You must use Texas Toast. No other toast will do, as you’re about to put a load of artery-clogging yummy badness so big that anything else would turn into a soggy mess. No other toast is, in fact, studly enough to withstand the towering Volcano.

This is the stacking order, from bottom to top: toast, hash browns, browned hamburger, cheese sauce, chili, onion, salt and pepper. If you wish to add a secret ingredient, while browning the hamburger, add salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, chili spices, and garlic. Eating a Volcano is the gastronomic equivalent of spitting off bridges or cliffs; peeing against a tree; reading men’s magazines or watching The Guy Show; beer. This is the only recipe I’ve ever made that my brothers have asked for.

Enjoy.