Who invented the hamburger?

[lpetrich]

The hamburger’s origin story - The Washington Post
"Who invented the hamburger? Biting into the messy history of America’s iconic sandwich."

One popular story goes that in 1900 a customer walked into Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, Conn., and asked for something he could eat on the go. Owner Louis Lassen improvised by giving him a patty of the restaurant’s steak trimmings between two pieces of toast. The customer got his carryout lunch, and the world got the hamburger sandwich.

Except that that was far from the first.

In January I wrote a story that raised questions about Louis’ Lunch’s standing as the birthplace of the hamburger. However, I was not able to definitively disprove the claim. After the story ran, a reader named Thomas Pieragostini emailed me a link to a series of ads that appeared in the Shiner Gazette in Texas in the spring of 1894 that advertised “hamburger steak sandwiches” being served at a local saloon.

noting
Search Results « Chronicling America « Library of Congress

This early burger reference inspired me to dig deeper, and I have since found more than a dozen newspaper references to hamburgers in the 1890s, including in Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, California and Hawaii. These findings debunk the Louis’ Lunch claim and suggest other burger origin stories are not true, either. ...

Going back further,

But the true precursor to the burger we know today seems to be an inexpensive dish called hamburger steak, which began appearing on American menus in the early 1870s. (A menu, allegedly from Delmonico’s in New York City in 1834, listed the dish. It was eventually exposed as a fake.)

These minced beef and onion patties were served on a plate, not bread ...

and

In the mid-1700s, “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” by Hannah Glasse carried a “Hamburgh sausages” recipe, which was served on toasted bread. In Germany, a meat patty on bread called Rundstück Warm was popular by at least 1869.

and

“A first-century A.D. Roman cookbook by Apicius has a recipe in it that is suspiciously close to the modern burger, a minced meat patty blended with crushed nuts and heavily spiced and cooked,” says George Motz, a filmmaker and author who has researched burger history extensively.

This is a kind of  Sandwich That name comes from  John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich someone who was known for liking to eat that combination food. But sandwiches are older than him.

 

[Valjean]

But did the Roman version have lettuce, tomato and special sauce, or a sesame seed bun?

 

[ideologyhunter]

Fun fact, from Psych 101: Leon Festinger of cognitive dissonance theory developed the Impossible Whopper.

 

[lpetrich]

But did the Roman version have lettuce, tomato and special sauce, or a sesame seed bun?

Why not do some research?

 

[Bronzeage]

Probably the best any can do is find the first reference to the name hamburger, but like the sandwich, the concept of a sausage patty in a bun is pretty obvious to anyone who has a sausage patty and a bun.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

But did the Roman version have lettuce, tomato and special sauce, or a sesame seed bun?

No, but it had garum, Roman fish sauce.

 

[thebeave]

But did the Roman version have lettuce, tomato and special sauce, or a sesame seed bun?

Why not do some research?

 

[TV and credit cards]

For as long as there's been meat and bread at the table, I assure you men have been sandwiching them together.

 

[Wiploc]

When I was a youngster, I read a purported explanation in a newspaper:

Ground beef became popular in Hamburg Germany. Sailors who liked it in Hamburg would order "Hamburg style" in other ports.

Street vendors in New York sold little Hamburg steaks on buns, and thus the "hamburger" was born.

How much of that do I remember and how much did I confabulate? I actually think I'm remembering what I read.

But I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the article -- which I now remember was in a feature called "Junior Editors' Quiz" -- beyond this one bit: I have checked with Google Maps, and it turns out that Hamburg Germany is in fact accessible by water.

Another Google search calls into question my spelling of "Junior Editors' Quiz." Different papers seem to have put the apostrophe in different places, if they included it at all.

A search for "'Junior Editors' Quiz' hamburger" turns up a newspaper archive service that may have the original article behind a paywall.

 

[lpetrich]

I'm reluctant to read too much into being named after that city. Hotdogs are also called frankfurters and wieners, after another German city and an Austrian city.

 

[J842P]

For as long as there's been meat and bread at the table, I assure you men have been sandwiching them together.

Yeah, I suspect that putting a meat patty in some bread has been invented many, many times. Still, it is interesting to try to find out when the modern incarnation got started.

 

[DrZoidberg]

When I was a youngster, I read a purported explanation in a newspaper:

Ground beef became popular in Hamburg Germany. Sailors who liked it in Hamburg would order "Hamburg style" in other ports.

Street vendors in New York sold little Hamburg steaks on buns, and thus the "hamburger" was born.

How much of that do I remember and how much did I confabulate? I actually think I'm remembering what I read.

But I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the article -- which I now remember was in a feature called "Junior Editors' Quiz" -- beyond this one bit: I have checked with Google Maps, and it turns out that Hamburg Germany is in fact accessible by water.

Another Google search calls into question my spelling of "Junior Editors' Quiz." Different papers seem to have put the apostrophe in different places, if they included it at all.

A search for "'Junior Editors' Quiz' hamburger" turns up a newspaper archive service that may have the original article behind a paywall.

FYI, ground beef, traditionally is intended to make something expensive, beef, cheaper, by mixing it with other stuff. That's the story of fish balls/gefilte fish. Same story.

"Popular" isn't quite the operative word here. They liked it because they could afford something which vaguely resembled something expensive.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I need to look this up with my Alton Brown books. He's big into food history.

I'm reluctant to read too much into being named after that city. Hotdogs are also called frankfurters and wieners, after another German city and an Austrian city.

One claim I heard was it became Hot Dog because the guy popularizing them in the US didn't know how to spell Dachshund. Though, that doesn't make too much sense.

I suppose another reason to go with Hot Dog is because "Insult to Sausage" wouldn't have sold well.

 

[ZiprHead]

I need to look this up with my Alton Brown books. He's big into food history.

I'm reluctant to read too much into being named after that city. Hotdogs are also called frankfurters and wieners, after another German city and an Austrian city.

One claim I heard was it became Hot Dog because the guy popularizing them in the US didn't know how to spell Dachshund. Though, that doesn't make too much sense.

I suppose another reason to go with Hot Dog is because "Insult to Sausage" wouldn't have sold well.

The world's greatest hot dog. The main ingredient in Flint style coney dogs.

 

[bilby]

The name certainly suggests a geographical origin. Northern German cities often give their names to locally produced food items; The Berliner, for example, is a kind of jam donut. A glance at a map reveals a fair number of urban centres that fit this pattern:

 

[Wiploc]

The name certainly suggests a geographical origin. Northern German cities often give their names to locally produced food items; The Berliner, for example, is a kind of jam donut. A glance at a map reveals a fair number of urban centres that fit this pattern:

View attachment 34005

 

[DrZoidberg]

In Europe food is often named for another city for no apartment reason other than to give it an air of exotism.

Danish pastry in Denmark is called "Wienerbrød".

There's many examples

 

[bilby]

In Europe food is often named for another city for no apartment reason other than to give it an air of exotism.

Danish pastry in Denmark is called "Wienerbrød".

There's many examples

in Japan, too.

 

[Wiploc]

In Europe food is often named for another city for no apartment reason other than to give it an air of exotism.

Danish pastry in Denmark is called "Wienerbrød".

There's many examples

in Japan, too.

View attachment 34059

Philadelphia Cream Cheese

 

[Bomb#20]

The name certainly suggests a geographical origin. Northern German cities often give their names to locally produced food items; The Berliner, for example, is a kind of jam donut. A glance at a map reveals a fair number of urban centres that fit this pattern:

View attachment 34005

Dude, that map is an obvious fake. Everybody knows Bielefeld doesn't really exist.