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hamburger

  (hăm'bûr'gər) pronunciation also hamburg (-bûrg')
n.
    1. Ground meat, usually beef.
    2. A patty of such meat.
  2. A sandwich made with a patty of ground meat usually in a roll or bun.

[Short for Hamburger steak, after HAMBURG.]

WORD HISTORY   Because the world has eaten countless hamburgers, the origins of the name may be of interest to many. By the middle of the 19th century people in the port city of Hamburg, Germany, enjoyed a form of pounded beef called Hamburg steak. The large numbers of Germans who migrated to North America during this time probably brought the dish and its name along with them. The entrée may have appeared on an American menu as early as 1836, although the first recorded use of Hamburg steak is not found until 1884. The variant form hamburger steak, using the German adjective Hamburger meaning “from Hamburg,” first appears in a Walla Walla, Washington, newspaper in 1889. By 1902 we find the first description of a Hamburg steak close to our conception of the hamburger, namely a recipe calling for ground beef mixed with onion and pepper. By then the hamburger was on its way, to be followed—much later—by the shortened form burger, used in forming cheeseburger and the names of other variations on the basic burger, as well as on its own.


 
 
Food and Nutrition: hamburger

Or Hamburg steak, also known as beefburger. A flat cake made from ground (minced) beef, seasoned with salt, pepper, and herbs, and bound with egg and flour. Commercial beefburgers are usually 80-100% meat, but must by law (in the UK) contain 52% lean meat, of which 80% must be beef. Cereal, cereal fibre, or bean fibre may be added as filler or ‘meat extender’. Three people are credited with invention of the hamburger sandwich: Charles Nagreen at a county fair in Seymour, Wisconsin, so that people could stroll around the fair while eating (1885); Frank Menches at Akron (Ohio) county fair in 1892; and Louis Lassen in New Haven, Connecticut (1900).

A 100-g portion (4 oz raw weight) is a rich source of protein, vitamin B12, niacin, copper, and iron; a good source of zinc; a source of vitamins B2 and B6; contains 900 mg of sodium and 17 g of fat, of which half is saturated and half mono-unsaturated; supplies 260 kcal (1100 kJ).

 
Food Lover's Companion: hamburger

1. Said to have made its first appearance at the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, the hamburger is one of America's favorite foods. It consists of a cooked patty of ground beef sandwiched between two bread halves, usually in the form of a hamburger bun. The meat can be mixed with various flavorings including finely chopped onions and herbs, and is sometimes topped with a slice of cheese, in which case it becomes a cheeseburger. It's also commonly referred to as a burger and hamburger steak. The name "hamburger" comes from the seaport town of Hamburg, Germany, where it is thought that 19th-century sailors brought back the idea of raw shredded beef (known today as beef tartare) after trading with the Baltic provinces of Russia. Some anonymous German chef decided to cook the beef . . . And the rest is history. 2. Ground, shred-ded or finely chopped beef. See also ground beef.

 
Word Origin: hamburger

Origin: 1884

From the city of Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1800s Americans learned the fine art of grinding or chopping beef into tiny pieces and forming the pieces into a patty for cooking like a steak. At first it was simply called a Hamburg steak. But frequently there was an -er at the end of Hamburg because that was the way the Germans would say it; they add -er to the name of a city to indicate something or someone belonging to it. Thus the kind of sausage used in a hot dog was called a frankfurter (1894) after the city of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from which it came, and thus President John Kennedy in 1963 said to the citizens of divided Berlin, ">"Ich bin ein Berliner."" (Contrary to legend, his words did not mean "I am a creampuff," any more than "I am a New Yorker" would mean "I am an issue of a well-known weekly magazine.")

The nutritional value of the hamburger steak was promoted in the early 1900s by a Dr. Salisbury, from whom it acquired the more elegant name of Salisbury steak. But the popularity of hamburger really soared when the convenient practice of putting it in a bun became widespread. This was at first called the hamburger sandwich, but when it became the usual way of serving ground beef it was simply called the hamburger, and the bunless version had to be distinguished by terms like hamburger meat or hamburger patty.

As the hamburger gained in popularity, variations were invented. In the 1930s, someone who added cheese invented the name cheeseburger. That hybrid ended the patty's association with the city of Hamburg. Nowadays the hamburger is one of America's favorite fast foods, and plain burger is the usual term for it. A prefix can be added to call attention to a topping, ingredient, or style. The results have included names for chiliburgers, frankburgers, pickleburgers, and oliveburgers; lamburgers, hashburgers, nutburgers, and veggieburgers; California burgers, bar-b-burgers, twinburgers, and circus burgers.


 
Food & Culture Encyclopedia: Hamburger

Humans have consumed beef in scraped, chopped, hashed, and minced forms since the domestication of the cow. Its main advantage was that it was an efficient way of using many smaller parts of the cow, including fat, organs, brains, and so on. To this mixture could be added parts of other animals, plants, spices, flavorings, and adulterations. The resulting product can be easily shaped into different forms and prepared in a variety of ways—raw in steak tartare, molded into flat cakes or croquets, baked in a loaf, boiled and served in soups, barbecued or roasted and served on a bun, fried into meat balls, or stuffed into sausages with spices and herbs for later consumption.

Origin of Hamburger

The invention of the twentieth-century hamburger sandwich is the result of long developmental processes. Beginning in the fifteenth century, minced beef was a valued delicacy throughout Europe. In northern Germany, lightly fried chopped meat was called Frikadelle. Similar words are found in other European languages, and the root may be "farce," deriving from Latin farcere (to stuff). In English the term "forcemeat" was defined by Randle Holme in "The Academy of Armory" (Chester, 1688) as "meat with a stuffing of herbs, or other things made to that purpose."

Hashed beef was made into sausage in several different regions of Europe. In places such as Bologna, Russia, and Hamburg, beef was often combined with other meats and other ingredients. The German city of Hamburg was known for its beef sausage, which migrated to England by the mid-eighteenth century. One recipe, titled "Hamburgh Sausage," appeared in Hannah Glasse's 1758 The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. It consisted of chopped beef, suet, and spices. Although the author recommended that this sausage be served with toasted bread, no evidence suggests that the sausage was served as a sandwich.

Hannah Glasse's cookbook was also among the most common in Colonial America, although it was not published in the United States until 1805. This American edition did contain the "Hamburgh Sausage" recipe with slight revisions.

The frequently cited "Hamburg Steak" on the Delmonico's restaurant menu dated 1834 was neither served as a sandwich nor composed of ground beef. With the popularization of the meat grinder in America about 1850, ground beef became a possibility. Recipes for it appeared in cookbooks from other countries, such as in Henriette Davidis's Praktisches Kochbuch für die Deutschen in Amerika. In American cookbooks, these recipes were frequently called "Beefsteak à la Hamburg." This recipe was so associated with the United States that the 1899 edition of Blüher's Rechtschreibung der Speisen und Getränke reported without explanation that chopped beefsteak was called "Hamburg steak" in America. Ground beef was also called "Salisbury steak," which was named in honor of the American physician James H. Salisbury (1823–1905), who wrote The Relation of Alimentation and Disease (New York, 1888). Salisbury believed that scraped lean beef, flattened into cakes and broiled, was among the best foods for those who were ailing. As scraping beef was a difficult task, common recipes for it just recommended grinding the beef, a process not recommended by Salisbury. Scraped or ground, Salisbury steak could be served with toast, but it was not served as a sandwich.

The Sandwich

The sandwich—a filling between two slices of bread that can be consumed by hand—is said to have been popularized by the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792). This mode of eating became so popular in England that it was mentioned in several diaries and in Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. Shortly thereafter, cooks and hosts began experimenting with various fillings other than sliced beef.

Sandwiches migrated to the United States before the Civil War. In the mid-nineteenth century, sandwiches consisted of a filling composed of lean slices of cold meat between two thin pieces of bread flavored with mustard and ketchup. They were served in bars and saloons, where patrons could easily consume them without the need of knives, forks, or plates. During the late nineteenth century, interest in the sandwich rapidly expanded to include boned fish, sardines, cheese, boiled eggs, stewed fruit, chopped nuts, mushrooms, chicken, watercress, sardines, and jelly and jam. Many salads, such as chicken and lobster, were converted into sandwiches. By 1900, hundreds of different fillings were consumed in sandwiches.

Hamburger Sandwiches

Several legends have grown up concerning who first served hamburger sandwiches in America. A hamburger sandwich is defined as a hot ground-beef patty between two slices of bread. It is not likely that any of the early claims put forth are accurate: sandwiches were composed of thin bread requiring thin fillings. Thin bread would also not have been able to contain the juices exuded from hot ground hamburger.

The first known published reference to a "hamburger sandwich" appeared in an article in the New York Tribune, which noted that this "new innovation" was served at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. While it is possible that hamburger sandwiches were constructed well before this date at small stands and diners, the fair gave them national exposure and national diffusion resulted.

Hamburgers served in stands and diners in many regions of the United States attracted the working class. In a diner in Wichita, Kansas, a short-order cook named J. Walter Anderson flattened the meat balls and placed them in a bun; he developed the first commercial bun for hamburgers. In 1916 Anderson opened his own hamburger stand and sold them at five cents apiece to attract customers. To sell sandwiches at this price, Anderson streamlined his operation. To make certain that his clients were aware of what was contained in his hamburger, he ground his own beef and let his customers watch him doing it. His business was so successful that he opened three additional stands within four years. His success brought competitors, and the streets of Wichita had many hamburger stands. In 1921 he went into business with Edgar Waldo "Billy" Ingram. Ingram repackaged Anderson's hamburger stands architecturally into castles, and gave the operation the name "White Castle." Ingram insisted on standardization of all the stands, and he required employees to maintain strict standards of cleanliness, eventually requiring uniforms. This was extremely successful, and White Castle began expanding beyond Wichita. By 1924 the company had expanded to Omaha, then to Kansas City, then St. Louis, and the expansion continued. Ingram declared White Castle to be a national operation with forty-four outlets by 1930. He standardized the operation by opening meat-processing and bun-baking operations.

White Castle imitators, including some with the word "white" in their name, such as White Tower, spread across the United States. Ed Gold launched another hamburger chain, Wimpy Grills, in 1934. This featured the ten-cent "Wimpy" burger named after the cartoon character J. Wellington Wimpy, who immortalized the phrase: "I would gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today" in a Popeye cartoon released in 1929. Wimpy Grills was the first fast-food corporation to expand abroad. Another competitor was Bob Wian, who founded Bob's Big Boy chain in southern California in 1936. He featured an upscale double-patty burger and franchised his operation, which quickly spread from coast to coast.

Within a few decades of the launch of White Castle, the hamburger had become America's national sandwich. Through small hamburger stands and national franchise chains, hamburgers were sold through hundreds of outlets throughout America.

Mcdonald's

The prewar enlargement paled by comparison with the expansion of hamburger establishments after World War II. Returning from the war, many military personnel married, had children, bought cars, and moved to the suburbs. Focusing on those suburbanites with growing families and stretched incomes, Richard and Maurice McDonald designed a hamburger restaurant incorporating assembly-line efficiency into a commercial kitchen. This efficiency helped them to reduce their expenses and therefore permitted them to sell hamburgers at a low price. They hoped that the lower price would increase the number of customers, generating a greater volume with higher profits. To test their ideas, they opened an octagonal-shaped hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California, in 1948. Their operation did not include indoor tables, and it required that customers line up to place their orders and then eat in their cars: this eliminated the need for waitresses, which further reduced their expenses. The McDonalds sped up the process of making hamburgers through a series of innovations. They also decided to concentrate on selling just a few items: hamburgers, cheese-burgers, French fries, sodas, and shakes. These efforts to streamline and mass-produce hamburgers paid off. In 1951, they grossed $275,000.

As efficient as their internal operation was, the McDonald brothers concluded that they needed a new architectural design for the outside of their restaurant. Richard came up with the idea of constructing "golden arches" right through the roof which sloped upward toward the front, thus creating one of the most well-known architectural symbols in the world.

With the success of their newly designed operation, the McDonald brothers made another important decision: they franchised their operation. Franchising permitted others to build McDonald's drive-ins throughout the nation that were based on the design developed in San Bernardino. Those receiving franchises paid the McDonald brothers a fee and a percentage of their sales. In 1953 newly-designed McDonald's franchises opened in Phoenix, Arizona, and Downey, California.

At this time, McDonald's was just one of several new fast-food hamburger chains. In Los Angeles, Carl Karcher started selling hamburgers in 1946. In San Diego, Jack in the Box had been launched in 1951 and sported the first drive-through service. Three years later in Miami, James McLamore and David Edgerton founded Insta-Burger King, which later evolved into the Burger King chain.

To make the shakes quickly, the McDonald brothers purchased Multimixers—machines that mixed six shakes simultaneously. Ray Kroc, a Multimixer salesman, visited the McDonald brothers' operation in 1954 and was so impressed with their efficient operation that he arranged with the McDonald brothers to sell franchises. In 1955, Kroc opened his own McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, and streamlined the operation even further. By the end of 1957, there were thirty-seven McDonald's. Two years later, the total exceeded one hundred establishments, and this doubled the following year. In 1961 Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million and opened Hamburger University in Elk Grove, Illinois. McDonald's operations throughout America rapidly expanded.

McDonald's success encouraged competition, and many other fast-food chains adopted methods developed by the McDonald brothers and Kroc. Dave Thomas opened his first Wendy's restaurant in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio. Fast-food establishments underwent tremendous growth beginning in the mid-1960s. By 2000 there were more than 11,800 McDonald's, 6,298 Burger Kings, and 3,721 Wendy's fast-food establishments in the United States. Since there are an estimated 160,000 fast-food restaurants, it is estimated that the first job of one out of ten Americans is in a fast-food establishment.

Problems

Despite the rapid success of fast-food and soft-drink enterprises throughout the world, hamburgers and fast food have been condemned almost from the beginning. Until the arrival of White Castle, many potential customers avoided hamburger stands because of the lack of cleanliness of some establishments. Also, as low cost was an important factor in the hamburger business, many sellers adulterated the ground beef with other ingredients, leading many Americans to consider the hamburger an unhealthy food. In 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (1933), Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink claimed that hamburgers contained preservatives, which restored the color of the ground beef and destroyed the odor of spoilage.

Another concern has focused on fast-food advertising targeted at youth. McDonald's, for instance, developed cartoon characters such as Ronald McDonald. The "Happy Meal" with toys was launched in 1979. McDonald's has subsequently added children's play areas to many establishments and, like Burger King, has developed numerous tie-ins with major children's motion pictures.

Fast-food chains have been sensitive to a variety of health and environmental issues. For instance, McDonald's has reduced the fat content of its hamburgers, encourages recycling in some restaurants, refuses to buy beef from Brazil, and changed the wrappings of Big Macs and Quarter Pounders to make them more biodegradable.

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal maintains that the enormous growth of the fast-food industry has caused conditions in the big slaughterhouses to pose serious health concerns. Schlosser and others also blame fast food for a rise in obesity, which is among America's most serious health problems.

There has been heated criticism of the effects of fast food on local cultures and businesses. Serious nutritional, environmental, and cultural questions about fast food remain. As the homogenization of food choices continues worldwide, some consider the rapid expansion of fast-food chains as examples of an insidious American imperialism that is destroying local cultures and values. McDonald's success abroad has cause deep resentment by others who see the company as a symbol for the United States, and who believe that McDonald's expansion threatens local culinary traditions. In France, a sheep farmer named José Bové demolished a McDonald's restaurant that was nearing completion. Similar actions have occurred in other European countries.

Globalization

Despite condemnation throughout the world, the hamburger sandwich is one of the most successful foods in the world. The attraction of the hamburger is that it is inexpensive, convenient, and filling. Hamburgers are also versatile. At the minimum, hamburger sandwiches consist of just cooked ground beef in a bun. To this can be added hundreds of sliced and diced vegetables, condiments and spices, the most common of which are tomatoes, onions, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, salt, and pepper. Hamburger sandwiches with special seasonings and ingredients have proliferated. In 1984, Gyula Décsy's Hamburger for America and the World catalogued more than eight hundred hamburgers in the United States alone. These were a small fraction of the variety of hamburgers available today.

Hamburger establishments also caught on quickly in Canada and the United Kingdom. McDonald's opened its first Canadian restaurant in 1967 and created its International Division in 1969. By 1988 McDonald's had 2,600 locations abroad. Six years later, that number exceeded 4,500 restaurants in 73 other countries. In 2002 there were more than 28,000 restaurants in about 120 countries. McDonald's has over 1,000 restaurants in Japan alone. Measured by volume of customers, the most popular restaurant in Japan is McDonald's. France has 538 McDonald's restaurants; Australia, 615; Germany (the home of the original "hamburger"), 743; United Kingdom, 693; and Canada almost 900. The world's largest McDonald's is located near Red Square in Moscow, where a Big Mac lunch costs the equivalent of a week's paycheck. When McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Minsk, over 4,000 Belorussians showed up, forcing the operators to call in the police for crowd control. McDonald's boasts 127 restaurants in China—one of which overlooks Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Today, McDonald's international sales are $15 billion out of a total of almost $32 billion. Of its total revenue, 59 percent of its corporate profits are generated by restaurants in countries other than the United States.

There are many reasons for the success of fast-food chains in other countries. Most chains have adapted to foreign cultures, including revising the ingredients in hamburgers. In addition to efficient service and cultural sensitivity, other factors contributing to this success abroad are cleanliness of fast food establishments, family atmospheres, clean bathrooms, and air-conditioning. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there were few countries that did not sport a fast-food establishment selling hamburgers. Foreign hamburger establishments are expanding at a faster pace than are hamburger establishments in the United States. With this rapid expansion, hamburgers are now a global food.

First Located Hamburg(ER) Recipe?

To make Hamburgh Sausages

Take a pound of Beef, mince it very small, with half a Pound of the best Suet; then mix three Quarters of a Pound of Suet cut in large Pieces; then season it with Pepper, Cloves, Nutmeg, a great Quantity of Garlic cut small, some white Wine Vinegar, some Bay Salt, a Glass of red Wine, and one of Rum; mix all these very well together, then take the largest Gut you can find, stuff it very tight; then hang it up a Chimney, and smoke it with Saw-dust for a Week or ten Days; hang them in the Air, till they are dry, and they will keep a Year. They are very good boiled in Peas Porridge, and roasted with toasted Bread under it, or in an Amlet.

SOURCE: Hannah Glasse. Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. 6th ed. London, 1758, p. 370.

Bibliography

Boas, Max, and Steve Chain. Big Mac: The Unauthorized Story of McDonald's. New York: Dutton, 1976.

Décsy, Gyula. Hamburger for America and the World: A Handbook of the Transworld Hamburger Culture. Transworld Identity Series, vol. 3. Bloomington, Ind.: Eurora European Research Association, 1984.

De Gouy, Louis P. The Burger Book: Tasty Ways to Serve GroundMeat. New York: Greenberg, 1951.

Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Villard Books, 1993. (Chapter 11 [pp. 155–172] discusses Richard and Maurice McDonald, Ray Kroc, and the origins of the McDonald's empire.)

Hogan, David Gerard. Selling 'em by the Sack: White Castle and the Creation of American Food. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

Kallet, Arthur, and F. J. Schlink. 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics. New York: Vanguard, 1933.

Kroc, Ray, with Robert Anderson. Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1977.

Love, John F. McDonald's behind the Arches. Rev. ed. New York: Bantam, 1995.

Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of Society: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge Press, 1996.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.

Tennyson, Jeffrey. Hamburger Heaven: The Illustrated History of the Hamburger. New York: Hyperion, 1993.

Vidal, John. McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial. New York: New Press, 1997.

Watson, James L., ed. Golden Arches East: McDonald's in EastAsia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997.

—Andrew F. Smith

 
Nutritional Values: The Nutritional Value for: hamburger

Description Quantity Energy
(calories)		 Carbs
(grams)		 Protein
(grams)		 Cholesterol
(milligrams)		 Weight
(grams)		 Fat
(grams)		 Saturated Fat
(grams)
4oz patty 1 sandwich 445 38 25 71 174 21 7.1
regular 1 sandwich 245 28 12 32 98 11 4.4
 
Word Tutor: hamburger
pronunciation

IN BRIEF: Beef that has been ground, made into a patty and served on a bun.

pronunciation We ate hamburgers and hot dogs at the picnic.

 
Wikipedia: hamburger
This article is about the food item. For the actual meat, see Patty. For other uses, see Hamburger (disambiguation).


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A hamburger (or simply burger) is a sandwich that consists of a cooked patty of ground meat that is fried, steamed, grilled, or broiled, and is generally served with various condiments and toppings inside a sliced bun, often baked specially for this purpose.

Hamburger also refers to the cooked patty of ground meat (usually beef) by itself.[1] The patty alone is also known as a beefburger, or burger. This type of meat can be used in boxed dinners such as "Hamburger Helper". Hamburger is actually a distinct product from ground round and other types of ground meat. However, ground beef of any form is often commonly referred to as "hamburger." A recipe calling for 'hamburger' (the non-countable noun) would require ground beef or beef substitute- not a whole sandwich. Hamburger does not refer to ham.

History

A grilled patty of ground meat
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A grilled patty of ground meat

The word "Hamburger" comes from Hamburg, Germany; the inhabitants of this city are also known as "Pork Eaters" in German. In Germany, local traditional snacks are often named after the place of origin, like the Frankfurter (also known as a hotdog), the Berliner (a jam doughnut) or Thüringer (Bratwurst). In Hamburg it was common to put a piece of roast pork into a roll, called Rundstück warm, although this is missing the "essence" of the modern hamburger, which is ground meat. However, another theory states that in Hamburg, meatscraps similar to modern ground beef were served on a Brötchen,[2] a round bun-shaped piece of bread. It is said that German immigrants then took the Hamburger to the United States.[2]

  • Menches Brothers 1885, Hamburg, New York. Western New York history recorded that Frank and Charles Menches ran out of pork for their sausage patty sandwiches at the 1885 Erie County Fair. Their supplier, reluctant to butcher more hogs in the summer heat, suggested they use beef instead. The brothers fried some up, but found it bland. They added coffee, brown sugar, and other ingredients to create a taste which stands distinct without condiments. They christened their creation the "Hamburg Sandwich" after Hamburg, New York where the fair has been held since 1868; the name was probably later condensed by common use to the shorter contraction "hamburger" (and so explaining why a beef sandwich--which never contained any pork--bears this name). A little known fact is that the Original Hamburger indeed had its own recipe spiced with coffee and brown sugar - much different from what most Americans have tasted over the last one hundred years. The original recipe is featured at Menches Brothers Restaurants in Akron, Ohio.
  • Fletcher Davis late 1880s, Athens, Texas. In 1974, The New York Times ran a story about Louis' Lunch being a challenger to the title of inventing the hamburger. According to the McDonald's hamburger chain the inventor was an unknown food vendor at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Newspaper columnist, Texas historian, and restaurateur Frank X. Tolbert said that this food vendor was Fletcher Davis. Davis operated a café at 115 Tyler Street on the north side of the courthouse square in Athens, Texas, in the late 1880s. Local lore holds that Davis was selling an unnamed sandwich of ground beef at his lunch counter at that time. In 1904, Davis and his wife Ciddy, with backing from local business, took their sandwich to the 1904 World's Fair. Fletcher and Ciddy Davis launched their invention from "Old Dave's Hamburger Stand", located on the midway at the fair. A reference to a New York Tribune article written at the time about the fair called a hamburger the innovation of a food vendor on the pike. Tolbert said that Old Dave was Fletcher Davis from Athens. During the 1980s Dairy Queen ran a commercial filmed in Athens, calling the town the birthplace of the hamburger. In November 2006, The Texas State Legislature introduced Bill HCR-15, designating Athens as the "Original Home of the Hamburger".
  • Louis Lassen 1895, New Haven, Connecticut. Some believe the first hamburgers were served at Louis' Lunch, a sandwich shop established in 1895 in New Haven. The small lunch counter is credited by some with having invented this quick businessman's meal when Louis' sandwiched a hamburger between two pieces of white toast for a busy office worker in 1900. Louis' Lunch flame broils the hamburgers in the original 1898 Bridge & Beach vertical cast iron gas stoves using locally patented steel wire broilers to hold the hamburgers in place while they cook. In 2000, the United States Library of Congress credited Louis' Lunch with making America's first hamburger [1].
  • White Castle, 1921, Wichita, Kansas. Due to widely prevalent anti-German sentiment in the USA during the World War I, an alternative name for hamburgers was salisbury steak. Even after the war, hamburgers' popularity was severely depressed until the White Castle chain of restaurants created a business model featuring sales of large numbers of small hamburgers. White Castle holds a U.S trademark on "slyders".
  • Homemade hamburgers. Although restaurants may have had an important role in popularizing hamburgers in the United States, hamburgers have been prepared by hand in the home from fresh ground meat and cooked, either fried on the stove or grilled over charcoal in a barbecue for many years.

Hamburgers today

Hamburger and fries served in an American diner.
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Hamburger and fries served in an American diner.

In 1906, Upton Sinclair published his book: "The Jungle" which exposed the lack of sanitation in the meat packing industry. As a result, many Americans developed a fear of eating processed beef. In the 1920s, Billy Ingram, (one of the founders of White Castle), began a public relations campaign to remake the image of the hamburgers sold in restaurants and to help make the burger a favorite food. In his book: "Selling them by the Sack: White Castle and the Creation of the American Food", David Gerald Hogan credits Billy Ingram and White Castle for making the hamburger the very popular food it is today, and leading the way for McDonald's and other franchises to follow.

The "cheese hamburger," now simply the cheeseburger, is said to have first appeared in 1924, and credited to grill chef Lionel Sternberger of The Rite Spot restaurant in Pasadena, California. This kind of burger is basically the same as a regular hamburger but with a slice of cheese (cheddar, American, Swiss, et cetera) inside.

The term "burger" has now become generic, and may refer to sandwiches that have ground meat, chicken, fish (or even vegetarian) fillings other than a beef patty, but share the characteristic round bun. By the mid 20th century both terms were commonly shortened to "hamburger" or simply "burger." However, these "burgers" are usually referred to as "chicken burgers", "fish burgers", etc. A "hamburger" today can also be made with finely chopped beef as well as ground beef.

Hamburgers are usually a feature of fast food restaurants. However, the hamburgers prepared in fast food establishments are mass-produced in factories and frozen for delivery to the site. These hamburgers are thin and of uniform thickness, differing dramatically from the traditional American hamburger prepared in homes and conventional restaurants, which is thicker and prepared by hand from fresh ground beef. Traditional American hamburgers are round, but some fast-food chains, such as Wendy's sell square-cut hamburgers. A traditional American hamburger is conventionally served in a non-fast food restaurant with iceburg lettuce and a slice of tomato, unless requested otherwise. Hamburgers in fast food restaurants are usually fried, but some firms, such as Burger King use a grilling process. At conventional American restaurants, hamburgers may be ordered "rare", but normally are served well-done for food safety reasons (see below). Fast food restaurants do not offer this option.

The McDonald's fast-food chain sells a sandwich called the Big Mac that is one of the world's top selling hamburgers. Other major fast-food chains – including Burger King (known as Hungry Jacks in Australia), A&W, Whataburger, Carl's Jr./Hardee's chain, Wendy's (known for their square patties), Jack in the Box, Cook Out, Harvey's, In-N-Out Burger, Five Guys, Fatburger, Burgerville, Back Yard Burgers, and Sonic – also rely heavily on hamburger sales. Fuddruckers and Red Robin are popular hamburger chains that specialize in mid-tier "restaurant-style" variety of hamburgers. The "slider" style of mini hamburger is still popular regionally in the White Castle and Krystal chains.

Some American establishments offer a unique take on the hamburger beyond what is offered in the fast food restaurants. Notable is Father's Office in Santa Monica, California. The patty is composed of dry-aged sirloin mixed with New York Strip ends topped with applewood-smoked bacon compote. It is topped with maytag blue and Gruyère cheeses, caramelized onions, and arugula on a French roll. In lieu of ketchup, Father's Office serves a blue cheese aioli in a ramekin. Dyer's Burgers in Memphis Tennessee is famous for a deep-fried burger. The proprietors claim that they recycle and re-use the same grease used when the restaurant opened in 1912. The casual dining chain Ruby Tuesday claims to have many different varieties of hamburgers on its menu of various shapes, meat compositions, or grades of beef.

Often, hamburgers are served as a common picnic and party food, cooked outdoors on barbecue grills. Hamburgers are also very good for backyard grilling and for home use. Hamburger patties are raw when first bought and may contain harmful bacteria that can produce food-borne illness such as Escherichia coli O157:H7, so caution is needed when handling them. Hamburgers patties can be cooked rare, medium rare, medium, medium well, or well done. These terms refer to how thoroughly the meat is cooked, ranging from having a little bit of pink coloring to being dark brown, cooked almost to a crisp. However because of the potential for food-borne illness, it is recommended that hamburgers should be cooked to an internal tempature of 170°F. If cooked to this temperature, they will be well done.

Ingredients and dietary aspects

Despite the "ham" implication of the name, a commercial hamburger usually contains no ham or other pork product. It is made primarily of ground beef, although it may also contain spices and other ingredients (In the 1930s ground liver was sometimes added to the mixture). This is also known as a beef hamburger or a "beefburger." A beef hamburger that contains no other ingredients besides the beef itself is often referred to as an "all beef hamburger" or "all beef patties." Some prepare their patties with egg, bread crumbs, onions or onion soup mix, Worcestershire sauce, parsley or other ingredients. Hamburgers with thousand island sauce have become popular too. McDonald's Big Mac burger and In-N-Out's burgers are known for having their version of thousand island sauce.

Recent years have seen the increasing popularity of new types of "burgers" in which alternatives to ground beef are used as the primary ingredient. For example, a turkey burger uses ground turkey meat, a chicken burger uses either ground chicken meat or chicken filets. A buffalo burger uses ground meat from a bison and some mix cow and buffalo meat, thus creating a "Beefalo burger" and an ostrich burger is made from ground seasoned ostrich meat. A Bambi burger uses ground venison from deer. [3]

The composition of a hamburger made in a fast food is more complex than the original recipe of meat itself. For example, the partial composition of a McDonald's hamburger is organized as follows:

Fat content: 20%.

Veggie Burgers

A veggie burger, garden burger, or tofu burger uses a meat analogue, a meat substitute such as tofu, TVP, seitan (wheat gluten), quorn or an assortment of vegetables, ground up and mashed into patties. In the last several years Chili's and several frozen food distributors have created a burger made up of black beans that closely replicates the smokey flavor of beef. Throughout the years veggie burgers have become more popular among fastfood restaurants, appealing to vegetarian customers.

Many of these types of burgers are lower in saturated fat or calories than traditional hamburgers, and most of the time contains Phytoestrogen (Soy)

Cheeseburger

A Burger King Quad Stacker
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A Burger King Quad Stacker
Main article: Cheeseburger

A cheeseburger is a hamburger with cheese in addition to the meat. In 1924, Lionel Sternberger grilled the first cheeseburger in Pasadena, California. When Sternberger died in 1964, Time magazine noted in its February 7 issue that:

"...at the hungry age of 16, [Sternberger] experimentally dropped a slab of American cheese on a sizzling hamburger while helping out at his father's sandwich shop in Pasadena, thereby inventing the cheeseburger..."

Serving style

Methods of serving hamburgers vary considerably in different countries. Many countries use a bun. Thickness in meat patties range depending on the restaurant. Some places serve hamburger patties that can weigh up to a couple pounds (and sometimes much more.)

North America

North American Burger
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North American Burger

In North America restaurants, burgers can be divided into two main types, fast food hamburgers and ones served at sit down restaurants. The latter is traditionally offered "with everything" (or "all the way," "deluxe," "the works," "through the garden," or in some regions "dressed"), which includes lettuce, tomato, onion, and often sliced pickles (or pickle relish). Cheese (usually processed cheese slices but often cheddar, Swiss, or blue, either melted on the meat patty or crumbled on top), is generally an option. Condiments are usually added to the hamburger, but they may be offered separately ("on the side"), with the two most common condiments being mustard and tomato ketchup. However, mayonnaise, other salad dressings, and barbecue sauce are also popular. Traditional "Texas" hamburgers and cheeseburgers usually eschew other liquid condiments besides mustard. Other popular toppings include bacon, avocado or guacamole, sliced mushrooms or mushroom sauce, chili (with or without beans), salsa and other kinds of chile peppers. Heinz 57 sauce is popular among burger enthusiasts. Less popular ingredients include fried egg, scrambled egg, feta cheese, anchovies, slices of ham, tartar sauce, peanut butter and potato chips.

Standard toppings on hamburgers can vary by geographical region, particularly at restaurants that are not national or regional franchises. In the Upper Midwest, particularly Wisconsin, burgers are often made with a buttered bun, butter as one of the ingredients of the patty or with a pat of butter on top of the burger patty. This is called a "Butter Burger." In portions of the Carolinas, for instance, a Carolina-style hamburger "with everything" may be served with cheese, chili, onions, mustard, and cole slaw (usually a vinegar-heavy slaw with little or no mayonnaise), and national chain Wendy's sells a "Carolina Classic" burger with these toppings in these areas. In Hawaii hamburgers are often topped with teriyaki sauce, derived from the Japanese-American culture, and locally grown pineapple. Waffle House claims on its menus and website to offer 70,778,880 different ways of serving a hamburger. In portions of the Midwest and east coast, a hamburger served with lettuce, tomato, and onion is referred to as a "California burger." This usage is sufficiently widespread to appear on the menus of fast-food restaurants, most notably in locations of the Dairy Queen franchise.

A hamburger with two patties is a "double decker" or simply a "double," of which the Big Boy claims to be the first commercially sold, while a hamburger with three patties is a "triple," with the Wendy's restaurant chain being among the first to offer this as a regular product. Doubles and triples are often combined with cheese and occasionally with bacon as well, yielding a "double cheeseburger" or a "triple bacon cheeseburger," or alternatively, a "bacon double/triple cheeseburger." A hamburger with one patty, bacon, and cheese is a "bacon cheeseburger" or a "Banquet Burger"; hamburgers with bacon but no cheese are often called "bacon-burger"s. The Hardee's restaurant chain gained extensive publicity within the United States following its introduction of the Monster Thickburger, with two meat patties, three slices of cheese, six strips of bacon, 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat. Other restaurants, such as In-N-Out, offer multiple patties and cheese on a burger (for example, 4 X 4 which is 4 meat patties and 4 slices of cheese). One could order as many meat patties as desired.

A patty melt is a sandwich consisting of a hamburger patty, sautéed onions and cheese between two slices of rye bread. The sandwich is then grilled so that the cheese melts thoroughly.

To decrease cooking and serving time, fast food hamburgers have thinner patties than their fancier counterparts. The Carl's Jr. restaurant chain acknowledged this with the introduction of the "Six Dollar Burger," featuring a patty the same size as those served by sit-down restaurants for a lower price. Hamburgers also tend to be described by their combined uncooked weight, with a single uncooked burger a nominal four ounces (a "quarter pounder" [113.5 grams]); so, instead of a "double hamburger" one might encounter a "half pounder" (i.e. eight ounces [227 grams]; burger weights are always specified in pounds).

Fast-food hamburgers are usually dressed with a variety of condiments, and in order to get a fast-food hamburger without one of these standard condiments a special order may be required.

White Castle also serves small hamburgers known as "sliders."

Krystal, like White Castle, serves small hamburgers.

In Alberta, a kubie burger is a hamburger made with a pressed Ukrainian sausage (kubasa).[4]

United Kingdom

Hamburgers in the UK are very similar to their U.S. cousins, and the high-street is dominated by the same big two chains as in the U.S.—McDonald's and Burger King. The menus offered to both countries are virtually identical, although portion sizes tend to be smaller in the UK.

An original and indigenous rival to the big two U.S. giants was the quintessentially British fast-food chain Wimpy, originally known as Wimpy Bar, which served its burgers or cheeseburgers with British-style chips, served on a plate accompanied by flatware and delivered to the customer's table. Wimpy began to die out in the late 1980s, disappearing from the UK high-street. However, it persists in some motorway service stations, resembling much more the U.S. style system of counter-service.

Hamburgers are also available from mobile kiosks, particularly at outdoor events such as football matches. Burgers from this type of outlet are usually served without any form of salad - only fried onions and a choice of sauce (mayo, ketchup, brown sauce, et cetera)

Chip shops, particularly in the North-East, West Midlands and Scotland, serve battered hamburgers (along with battered sausages). This is where the burger patty, by itself, is deep-fat-fried in batter and served with chips, but no bun.

Hamburgers and veggie burgers, usually of a better quality, served with chips and salad, are now standard pub grub menu items. Indeed, many pubs specialize in "gourmet" burgers. These are usually high quality minced steak patties, topped with items such as blue cheese, brie, avocado et cetera. Another variant is the curry burger, which seasons the meat with curry to provide a spicier alternative.

Many British pubs are also notable for their extreme fondness for burger patties made from more exotic meats - common examples include venison burgers (sometimes nicknamed Bambi Burgers), Bison burgers and in some Australian themed pubs even Kangaroo burgers can be purchased. All of these hamburgers are served in a similar way to the traditional hamburger but may come with a different condiment - ie: Redcurrant sauce, mint sauce, plum sauce et cetera.

A recent innovation in the UK has been the introduction of "premium" hamburger chain restaurants, selling burgers produced from high-quality, often organic meats, and usually served as "eat in" rather than as takeaways. [2] Examples of companies involved in this trade include Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Ultimate Burger, and Hamburger Union, amongst others.

In recent years, pre-cooked microwaveable hamburgers have become common place in the United Kingdom, due to the spread of the Rustlers brand. The attraction of these products is the ability to have a restaurant-style burger at home with a negligible cooking time. However, the products are sold without any form of salad. The range is available from most supermarkets and has no major competitors, which boosts its popularity.

Australia & New Zealand

Fast food franchises sell American style fast food hamburgers in both Australia and New Zealand. The traditional Australasian hamburger almost always includes tomato, lettuce, cheese, grilled onion, beetroot (canned slices), and meat as minimum, and can optionally include a fried egg (usually with a hard yolk), bacon, and a grilled pineapple ring. The only condiments regularly used are tomato sauce, which is similar to ketchup but has less vinegar and more sugar, or BBQ sauce. Hamburgers in Australia and New Zealand tend to be less oily and fatty than their US counterparts, and are more likely to include a full salad if available. The McDonalds "McOz" Burger is partway between American and Australian style burgers, having beetroot and tomato in an otherwise typical American burger. Likewise McDonalds in New Zealand created a Kiwiburger which is similar to a Quarter Pounder, but features salad, beetroot and a fried egg. The Hungry Jacks "Aussie Burger" has tomato, lettuce, onion, cheese, bacon, beetroot, egg, ketchup and a meat patty. As with many issues between the two countries there is much debate over whether this burger (with beetroot being the defining factor) is, in fact, an Australian or a New Zealand creation, but the answer remains unclear.

Hamburger meat is almost always ground beef. Outside of fast food restaurants, "home made" style burgers, generally known in Australia as a 'Hamburger with the Lot' (if they have "the lot" on them) are usually bought from fish and chip shops.

China

In China, restaurants such as McDonald's and KFC have been proliferating all across the country. In many parts of China, small hamburger chains have opened up to capitalize on the popularity of hamburgers with children. Restaurants such as Peter Burger attempt to copy McDonald's.

In supermarkets and corner stores, customers can buy "hamburgers" (hanbao) off the bread shelf. These unrefrigerated so-called "hamburgers" are nothing more than ultra-sweet buns cut open with a thin slice of pork or ham placed inside without any condiments or vegetables. These hanbao are a half-westernised form of the traditional Cantonese "hamburgers" called "Char Siu Bao" (BBQ Pork Bun), see Chinese cuisine. The Chinese word for hamburger (hanbao) often refers to all sandwiches containing cooked meat, regardless of the meat's origin. This includes chicken burgers, as KFC is very popular in China.

Japan

In Japan, hamburgers can be served in a bun, called hanbāgā (ハンバーガー), or just the patties served without a bun, known as hanbāgu (ハンバーグ) or "hamburg", short for "hamburg steak".

Hamburg steaks (served without buns) are similar to what is known as Salisbury steaks in the USA. They are made from minced beef, pork or a blend of the two, mixed with minced onions, egg, breadcrumbs and spices. They are served with brown sauce (or demi-glace in restaurants) with vegetable or salad sides, or occasionally in Japanese curries. It is a popular item at home, and in casual, western style suburban restaurant chains known in Japan as "family restaurants". It became popular in the 1960s.

Hamburgers in buns, on the other hand, are predominantly the domain of fast food chains. As well as American chains such as McDonald's (nicknamed Makku) and Wendy's, Japan has a few home grown hamburger chain restaurants such as MOS Burger which serve what many consider to be excellent hamburgers. Local varieties of burgers served in Japan include teriyaki burgers, katsu burgers (containing tonkatsu) and burgers containing shrimp korokke. Some of the more unusual examples include the "Rice Burger", where the bun is made of rice, and the luxury 1000-yen (US $10) "Takumi Burger" (meaning "artisan taste"), featuring avocados, freshly-grated wasabi, and other rare seasonal ingredients. McDonald's Japan also recently launched a McPork burger, made on U.S. pork. McDonald's has been gradually losing market share in Japan to these local hamburger chains, due in part to the preference of Japanese diners for fresh ingredients and more refined, "upscale" hamburger offerings. Burger King once retreated from Japan, but re-entered the market in Summer 2007 in a cooperation with the Japanese/Korean fast-food chain Lotteria.

Other countries

Chicken burger with rice bun (sold by McDonald's in Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, the Philippines, and Singapore)
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Chicken burger with rice bun (sold by McDonald's in Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, the Philippines, and Singapore)

Rice burgers, mentioned above, are also available in several East Asian countries such as Taiwan and South Korea. Lotteria is a big hamburger franchise in Japan owned by the South Korean Lotte group, with outlets also in China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan. In addition to selling beef hamburgers, they also have hamburgers made from squid, pork, tofu, and shrimp. Variations available in Korea include bulgogi burgers and kimchi burgers.

Not surprisingly, the Philippines, with American influences going back to US domination of the islands at the beginning of the 20th Century, retains a strong bond with American trends. A wide range of major US fast-food franchises are well represented, together with local imitators, often amended to the local palate. The famous chain McDonalds (locally nicknamed "McDo"), which is immensely popular with Filipinos, have a range of burger and chicken dishes often accompanied by plain steamed rice and/or french fries. Most popular of all with locals, the Philippines boasts its own burger-chain called Jollibee - which offers credible burger meals and chicken, including a signature burger called "The Big Champ". It is perhaps ironic, but very encouraging, that Jollibee now has a number of outlets in the United States. Jollibee, as well as other rewith ground chicken and/or pork patties, and are served with coleslaw and generous amounts of a sauce made by mixing ketchup, mayonnaise and sour cream. In addition to tasting nothing like most Western burgers, the large amount of sauce makes it a very messy food to eat, and these hamburgers are generally served in special paper or plastic pouches to avoid spilling the sauce on oneself.

In India, burgers are usually made using a chicken or a vegetable patty, due to cultural taboos against eating beef and pork. These taboos stem from the religious practices of Hindus and Muslims, respectively. Because of this, the majority of fast food chains and restaurants in India do not serve beef or pork. Likewise, McDonalds restaurants in India do not serve beef or pork, therefore the 'Big Mac' is replaced with the 'Maharaja Mac' which substitutes the beef patties with chicken.

Another version of the Indian vegetarian burger is the "Wada Pav" consisting deep-fried potato patty dipped in gramflour batter. It is usually served with mint chutney and fried green chili.

In Pakistan there are no Pork Burgers. Apart from American Fast food chains, burgers can be found on stalls near shopping areas. The most famous and inexpensive being 'Shami Burger' made from 'Shami Kebab'. It is a Kebab made by mixing lentil and Minced lamb meat. Onions, scrambled egg and ketchup are the most common toppings.

In Malaysia, an Islamic country with a slight Muslim majority, pork burgers are not sold. Even so, the country has 300 Mc Donalds and 800 KFC restaurants. The menu in Malaysia also includes eggs and fried chicken on top of the regular burgers. Burgers are also easily found at nearby mobile kiosks especially Ramly Burger.

In South Africa a mixture of hot mustard and mayonnaise is standard fare for a burger. Usually the mixture will be out, already mixed for partakers.

Cultural associations

In the 1930s (and TV re-runs through the 1970s), the best-known association to the hamburger was Wimpy, a moocher in the cartoon Popeye who would "gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The character was the inspiration behind the name of the Wimpy hamburger chain.

In the movie Pulp Fiction, the two assassins played by John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson discuss with amusement the titles given to their beloved burgers in Europe. For instance they marvel that a quarter pounder is known as a "Royale with cheese". Samuel L Jackson's character gives a highly amusing speech to his soon-to-be victims (tucking into burgers before they are blown away) about the burger being a "cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast".

Another character associated with the hamburger is Jughead of Archie Comics. He would often beg his best friend Archie Andrews to buy him a hamburger and was constantly seen hanging out at Pop Tate's restaurant. At one point in the series, Jughead even entered a hamburger eating contest. After defeating his opponent, his only thoughts were to eat more hamburgers.

In 1984, Wendy's aired a series of TV advertisements for its hamburgers in which an elderly woman (played by Clara Peller) commented, "Where's the beef?" when examining competitors' burgers. The quip became a national catchphrase in the United States.

In the mid-1990s, some American fast food restaurants such as Hardee's and Burger King began intensely marketing eating "large hamburgers" (of one half pounds [681 grams] of beef or more) as a sign of masculinity. Using scantily clad women and images of construction workers eating hamburgers, they introduced the notion that eating large hamburgers is a sign of manliness.

Oprah Winfrey was sued for saying she would stop eating hamburgers when there was a mad cow disease scare, on the grounds that it was unsafe.[5][6][7]

The Video Game and anime character Viewtiful Joe loves to eat cheeseburgers, which are his favorite food. Everytime he sees a Hamburger Stand or Restaurant he says "Cheeseburger, please!" Another game, the 1982 arcade game Burgertime features a chef trying to make hamburgers while being chased by typical hamburger toppings.

Pop performer Jimmy Buffett wrote the song "Cheeseburger in Paradise" in 1978. He was inspired to write it after discovering, to his surprise, a restaurant in the British Virgin Islands serving American cheeseburgers.

Floridian band The Monsters In The Morning made a song about a hamburger and the contents called "Mr. Hamburger".

Urban legends

Main article: McDonald's urban legends

There has been a great proliferation of urban legends related to hamburgers, particularly relating to the McDonald's fast food chain.

Notes

  1. ^ "hamburger." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
  2. ^ a b Cooper, Jeanne (4 June 2006). "Did you know?", San Francisc Chronicle. 
  3. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1318965,00.html
  4. ^ The Canadian Oxford Dictionary has headwords for the Canadianisms kubasa, kubie (as a hot dog), and kubie burger, the latter two being specific to Alberta.
  5. ^ http://www.mad-cow.org/~tom/oprah.html "Cattlemen Condemn False and Misleading Oprah Show"