At first…
We take a look at the enigmatic origins of the world’s most popular food…the hamburger!
If you look back a few thousand years, you’ll find that even the ancient Egyptians ate ground beef patties, and over the centuries ground beef has been molded into patties and eaten around the world under many different names. But exactly when and where the modern hamburger was born is much harder to pin down. Several people in the US, from New Haven, Connecticut, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, confidently claim that their ancestors invented it.
As controversial as it is, the history of the hamburger is really a history that has been through the meat grinder. Legends say it began with the Mongols, who hid chunks of beef, lamb or mutton under their mounts as they traveled the globe on their campaign to conquer the known world, just as McDonald’s has done for the past half century.
The softened meat became flat patties, and after spending enough time between the asses of man and beast, the meat became tender enough to eat raw, no doubt a boon to fast riders who don’t wish to dismount.
When Genghis Khan’s grandson Kublai Khan and his hordes invaded Moscow, they naturally brought their unique dietary ground beef with them. The Russians adopted it in their own kitchen under the name “Steak Tartare” (Tartars is their name for the Mongolians). For many years Russian chefs have adapted and developed this dish and refined it by adding chopped onions and raw eggs.
Later, when world trade picked up, the seafarers brought this idea back to the port city of Hamburg, Germany, where the Deutschvolk decided to mold it with breadcrumbs into the shape of a steak and cook it, making something that, out of Hamburg , is known as as “Hamburg steak”, a dish now most popular nowadays, of all places, Japan, where almost all menus list it in Western fare as “steak cooked Hamburg-style” or “hanbagu “.
But enough of fishing in European and Asian waters; Let’s cut the bait here. Somehow, ground beef makes its way to America. Somehow it is put into a bun. But by whom? Surely the historical record should become clearer once we reach American shores. Unfortunately, it is not.
While some have written that the first American hamburger (actually Hamburger Steak) was served in 1834 at Delmonico’s restaurant in New York City, this oft-cited origin is not based on Delmonico’s original menu, but on a facsimile, which was discredited; The published facsimile is possibly not correct, as the printer of the alleged original menu was not even in business in 1834!
If a ground beef patty served between two slices of bun is a hamburger, the credit goes to Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin, who, at the age of 15, sold hamburgers from his ox-drawn concession stand at the county fair. Outagamie County. He went to the fair and set up a stall selling meatballs.
Business was down and he quickly realized it was because the meatballs were too hard to eat as he walked through the fair.
In a flash of innovation, he flattened the meatballs, sandwiched them between two slices of bread, and called his new creation a hamburger. Many knew him as “Hamburger Charlie”. He went back to selling hamburgers at the fair every year until his death in 1951, entertaining people with his guitar and harmonica and this jingle:
“Burgers, burgers, hot burgers; onions in the middle, pickle on top. Makes your lips go crazy.”
The town of Seymour is so sure of this claim that it calls itself the “Home of the Burger,” holds the record for the world’s largest burger, and hosts a burger festival every year.
However, to be fair, the descendants of county fair concessionaire Frank Menches and If If restaurateur Louis Lassen also claim that their ancestors invented the hamburger, served on a bun, in 1892 and 1900, respectively.
Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut claims to have invented our favorite food. From his website: “One day in the early 1900s, a man rushed into a small New Haven diner and asked for a quick meal that he could eat on the run. Louis Lassen, the owner of the establishment, rushed to sandwich a hamburger of roast beef between two slices of bread and sent the customer on his way, as the story goes, with America’s first hamburger.”
This claim is countered by the family of Frank and Charles Menches of Akron, Ohio, who now operate a small chain called, unsurprisingly, Menches Bros., and claim that their great-grandfather Charles and his brother Frank invented the dish while traveling in a concession circuit at fairs, race meets and farmer’s picnics in the Midwest.
According to family legend, the brothers originally sold sausages, but ran out and were forced to use ground beef, which at the time was considered out of order. Since they had nothing to sell, they bought some ground meat, and when they fried it, they found it too soft. They then decided to put coffee, brown sugar, and a few other homemade ingredients into it and made the sandwich. Frank didn’t really know what to call him, so when a gentleman asked him what he was like, he looked up and saw the banner of the
Hamburg fair and said: “This is the hamburger.” In Frank’s 1951 Los Angeles Times obituary, he is credited as the “inventor” of the hamburger.
But some say a burger isn’t really a burger unless it’s on a bun. If so, Tulsa, Oklahoma farmer and restaurateur Oscar Weber Bilby deserves credit for serving the first known “burger on a bun” in 1891. According to http://www.whatscookingamerica.net, Bilby’s burgers were served in Mrs. Bilby’s homemade yeast buns.
From all the research that’s been done, it’s likely that the hamburger arose independently in many different places in the US. Regardless of where it was invented, most people agree that the hamburger caught on for the first time in 1904, and McDonald’s historians agree.
That’s when merchant Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas served the burger at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Davis spread a mixture of ground mustard and mayonnaise on slices of thick bread and topped the burger with pickled cucumbers and a slice of Bermuda onion. He reportedly created quite a sensation, and after the World’s Fair, newspaper reports helped spread the burger idea across the country.
In the 1920s the burger was available at the White Castle quick service restaurant chain and the man who gave the burger its contemporary look and sought to expand the appeal of the product through chain operations was J. Walter Anderson , a Wichita, Kansas resident who went on to co-found the White Castle Hamburger system, the oldest continuously operating hamburger chain.
Aided by the marketing savvy of Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram, White Castle reached five units in the 1920s, selling a standardized product for five cents. White Castle would later pioneer the concept of chain marketing with the advertising slogan “Buy ’em by the bag.”
Another early pioneer in the development of chains through hamburgers was the Wimpy Grills chain, launched in 1934, in homage to J. Wellington Wimpy, the chubby, mustachioed cartoon character who hangs out with Popeye and was famous for say “I would gladly pay you”. Tuesday for a Burger Today.” Wimpy’s was innovative on two counts: It was the first chain to try to court an upscale restaurant with 10-cent burgers, and it was the first to go overseas. But when its founder, Ed Gold, died in The chain briefly disappeared in 1978 in accordance with a provision in his will that all 1,500 units close.But you can’t keep a good burger, and Wimpy’s is still with us in England today.
Throughout the 1930s, drive-thru hamburger restaurants with carhops on roller skates sprung up, and that’s when cheese was first used on burgers. In fact, in 1935, a Humpty-Dumpty Drive-In in Denver, Colorado attempted to trademark the name “cheeseburger.” And ever since Bob’s Big Boy introduced the first double burger, new varieties of burgers have been created. Today, people enjoy chicken burgers, veggie burgers, and quarter-pounder burgers with lots of different toppings, like lettuce,
mushrooms, cheese, onions, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, pickles, you name it, it’s been put on a burger.
In the 1950s, the hamburger was an American icon. Backyard cookouts were a favorite pastime, but it wasn’t until a Czech milkshake machine salesman named Ray Kroc met two brothers named McDonald that the course of hamburger history would change forever. and the product would be chiseled right next to mom’s apple. cake as an American icon. Maurice and Richard McDonald opened their first drive-in McDonald’s in 1948 in San Bernardino, California, as an alternative to drive-ins, as a
Hot dog stand and freshly squeezed orange juice. Three decades later, McDonald’s would stand alongside General Motors, IBM, and Microsoft as symbols of American capitalist might.
Following in McDonald’s footsteps are Burger King, home of the grilled burger, Wendy’s with its signature square burgers, and Carl’s Jr/Hardees, which, in addition to having the best burgers in the world, is famous for the Paris Hilton advertising campaign. last year (featuring a scantily clad Hilton washing a car in a bikini, introducing the notion that eating large hamburgers is a sign of masculinity), and its largest fast-food burger, the Monster Thickburger, with two steak burgers, three slices of cheese, six strips of bacon, 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat, a real man’s meal.
You see, their large burgers are quite popular because to reduce cooking and serving time, other fast food burger chains have thinner burgers than you’d find in a restaurant. The Carl’s Jr. restaurant chain recognized this with the US introduction of the “Six Dollar Burger,” which features a hamburger the same size as those served in sit-down restaurants, but at a lower price. bass.
Whether grilled, broiled, steamed, fried, or cooked on both sides at once on double-sided griddles, or slathered with ketchup, mayonnaise, cheese, or even teriyaki sauce, or buried under onions, avocados, or mushrooms, the burger it is to the restaurant industry as wings are to aviation. A century after its debut, the burger has certainly retained its appeal. In fact, according to some sources, it is the number one food in the world, with 60% of all sandwiches eaten being hamburgers!