I didn't realize my mother was a good cook till after I moved out. When you're a child, if your mother doesn't take you to McDonald's, you don't think she can cook. I had one of those mothers, no matter what you want, she has the ingredients at house. You say, "Ma, I wanna stop and get some McDonald's and she go, "I got hamburger meat at home."

"But I want McDonald's hamburger."

"I'll make you a hamburger better than McDonald's."

"You cook better than McDonald's?"

"That's right. You can help Mama make it."

You say, "shite, that's better than McDonald's."

Your mother say, "OK, go get me the big frying pan." So you hand her the frying pan and she say: "I want you to go in the refrigerator and get the meat and while you in there, get me a green pepper and a onion."

And you say: "Ain't no green peppers at McDonald's."

"I'm not making McDonald's, I'm making Mama's burger. I need a green pepper and an onion and get me an egg out too."

"What you need eggs for? I want hamburgers. You making Egg McMuffins?"

"I'm not making an Egg McMuffin. I don't know what no Egg McMuffin is. Just get me the egg and shut your mouth."

She take the egg and the green peppers and chop the peppers up in big chunks. Don't even dice it. Big chunks of green peppers and onion and mix the egg in and put paprika and all this shite in it and make a big meatball and put it in the middle of this frying pan. At McDonald's, the meat is this thin. Your mother's shite is like this or fatter. Green peppers hanging out of it and shite. And there's a big split in the middle and grease is popping out. You're looking at it while it's popping. You're looking at the grease in the pan and thinking: "That don't look like no McDonald's."

Then your mother say, "Go inside the refrigerator and get me the bread out of the bread box." And you go
look in the bread box and you say:

"Ma, we don't have no hamburger buns. All we have is Wonder Bread."

"That's what I said. Get the bread out of the bread box."

"You gonna put it on square Wonder Bread?"

"Bread is bread. Bring me that bread before I slap you. Don't tell me about Wonder Bread. As much as that bread costs, don't tell me about Wonder Bread. This is Wonder Bread. A hamburger is a hamburger."

And she'd make it and put it in the middle of square Wonder Bread. At McDonald's, they use buns, the meat covers the whole bread. At your mother's, the meat's right in the middle of the bread, with grease running through the middle, making the bread stick to the plate. This big green pepper is hanging out the top of this big meatball on the bread. And you try to put some ketchup on it and it mixes with the grease, turn the bread into pink dough. Then you grab it and get fingerprinted and you got big, pink fingerprints in the dough. You stand there looking at it and you try to make it look like McDonald's, so you rip the edges off around it, make it round. And you got green peppers and grease running down your hand. And your mother say, "Now, go on outside and play."

And the other kids got McDonald's. They outside going, "We got McDonald's hamburgers. McDonald's. McDonald's. I got McDonald's."

And you standing there with this big "house burger". And kids are honest. They say, "Where you get that big, welfare, green-pepper burger?"

And you cry. "My mother made it."

-Eddie Murphy

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This post was edited on 8/27/14 at 9:10 am