There's No Ham in Hamburgers

WAY BEFORE MCDONALD’S, WENDY’S, AND BURGER KING, there was Genghis Khan. Besides conquering most of the Asian continent in the thirteenth century, this Mongolian emperor found a way to feed his troops that would eventually become known as America’s favorite fast food.

GENGHIS KHAN (1162–1227)

Genghis Khan’s army, the Golden Horde, traveled by horseback from Mongolia to China on their raiding and ransacking excursions. Plundering and pillaging villages made them hungry. They didn’t have time to cook dinner because they had a continent to cross. They needed a fast, filling meal that could be eaten on the ride.

According to legend, Khan came up with a brilliant, although disgusting, solution. His soldiers put raw meat scraps between their horse and saddle. The constant friction from hours of riding tenderized the meat enough for the soldiers to eat it. A warrior could be trotting across the tundra, reach under his saddle, and pull out his dinner. The grounded meat patty came with its own special sauce—horse sweat.

Following in Genghis Khan’s hoofprints, his grandson—Kublai Khan—invaded Moscow in 1238. The Russians weren’t happy about being attacked, but they thought the saddle patties were a good idea. To add more flavor, or maybe to cover up the horsey smell, the Russians topped their patties with chopped onions.

A few centuries later, in the 1500s, trade ships began crossing the Baltic Sea between Germany and Russia. The visiting German sailors ate the Russians’ raw meat patty and loved it. When the sailors got home, they tried to get their wives to make the Russian delicacy. The wives must’ve thought raw meat was disgusting. Instead of eating it that way, they fried it.

Cooking the patties probably saved a lot of lives. Even though E. coli, and other bacteria, hadn’t been discovered yet, it lurked in the uncooked meat, waiting to attack some poor person’s intestines.

E. COLI

The new and improved fried beef patty, topped with sautéed onions, became a local favorite in Germany. At the time, Hamburg was the most important port city in the country. When sailors from other countries came ashore, they rushed to the nearest diner for a “Hamburg steak.”

In the 1800s, millions of Germans immigrated to the United States and they brought their Hamburg steak with them.

GERMAN IMMIGRATION

Who Decided to Put the Patty on a Bun?

Several people claim the honor of creating the first true hamburger. In no particular order, the top four contestants are:

“HAMBURGER CHARLIE” NAGREEN

of Seymour, Wisconsin

In 1885, fifteen-year-old Charlie Nagreen began selling meatballs at the Outagamie County Fair in Seymour, Wisconsin. Unfortunately, sales were slow. People didn’t seem to want to stop sightseeing long enough to eat. Charlie realized he needed to step up his game. He smashed a meatball between two slices of bread and named the new sandwich a “hamburger” after the commonly known Hamburg steak. Fairgoers loved this new fair food because they could eat it while they walked around. For the rest of his life, that young entrepreneur was known as “Hamburger Charlie.”

In 2007, the State of Wisconsin declared Seymour the “Original Home of the Hamburger.” To celebrate the creation of the hamburger, Seymour hosts an annual festival, which includes the World’s Largest Hamburger Parade (www.homeofthehamburger.org).

CHARLES AND FRANK MENCHES

of Unionville, Ohio

The Menches brothers were also selling food at a fair—the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, New York, in 1885. Unlike poor Charlie Nagreen, the brothers’ business was hopping! One day, they sold out of their sausages. The Menches couldn’t let those hungry fairgoers stay hungry, so they came up with a fried ground beef patty that they plopped on a roll. Since they were in Hamburg, Frank thought they should call their new fair food a “hamburger.” Thank goodness they weren’t at a fair in Poughkeepsie, New York, or we’d be eating poughkeepsers now. (The Menches also claimed to have created the first ice cream cone—you can read about that in Chapter 4.)

COPYCAT CITY NAMES

LOUIS LASSEN

of New Haven, Connecticut

In 1895, Louis Lassen sold steak sandwiches to factory workers out of a food cart in New Haven, Connecticut. Lassen didn’t like to waste the extra bits of steak, so he ground them up and made them into a patty. Then, he grilled it and served it on bread.

A while later, Lassen opened a restaurant named Louis’ Lunch. Still in existence today, the restaurant’s website tells of a day in 1900 when a customer rushed in and ordered a quick meal that could be eaten on the run. Louis served the customer one of his ground steak sandwiches, which began the famous (at least in Connecticut) Louis’ Lunch hamburgers. The Library of Congress officially recognizes Louis’ Lunch as the birthplace of the hamburger sandwich.

FLETCHER DAVIS

of Athens, Texas

Fletcher (Old Dave) Davis also claimed to have invented the hamburger to feed a hurried customer at his restaurant in Athens, Texas, in the late 1880s. Davis and his beef sandwiches were mentioned in a newspaper article about the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, but Davis claimed that hamburgers weren’t new because he’d been selling them for more than twenty years.

Who do you think first invented the hamburger? Go to www.nohaminhamburgers.com and vote for your top choice.

The common thread with these invention stories is that customers wanted a portable food and that became more evident at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. More than two million people visited the fair and many tasted a hamburger for the first time while there. One of those visitors, a New-York Tribune reporter, wrote an article about the fair and mentioned a great new sandwich called a “hamburger.”

After all that public exposure, the hamburger was definitely trending, and restaurants wanted to cash in on its popularity. The first hamburger chain, White Castle, opened in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. For a nickel, you could buy a small burger topped with grilled onions and a pickle.

Something else trended in the 1920s—automobiles. In 1920, only eight million cars roamed the dirt roads of America. By 1930, there were more than 23 million. Americans loved their cars. It was common for families to pile into their automobile for a Sunday drive, just to ride around. J. G. Kirby and Dr. Reuben W. Jackson saw opportunity in the car craze. They opened the first drive-in restaurant in 1921, in Dallas, Texas, called the Texas Pig Stand. Drive-in restaurants soon popped up across the United States, with hamburgers on almost every menu.

THE AMERICAN CAR CRAZE

Fast food got even faster when the drive-ins became drive-thrus. One of the first drive-thru hamburger restaurants was In-N-Out in Baldwin Park, California. Opened in 1948 by Harry and Esther Snyder, it served burgers, fries, and milk shakes from a shack with just enough room for a car to pull up next to the window.

Why bother parking when you can eat and drive at the same time? Sound familiar? Genghis Khan’s cavalry wanted to munch on the move, and eight hundred years later, Americans were doing the same thing.

Burger joints soon sprang up in every American town and many are still around today. Burger King and McDonald’s were both founded in 1954, with Wendy’s following in 1969. The battle for customers became the battle of the burgers. Burger King introduced the Whopper in 1957 with huge success. That forced McDonald’s to bring out the Big Mac. Then came double cheeseburgers and bacon cheeseburgers and chili cheeseburgers and veggie burgers—the list goes on and on.

No wonder Americans eat more than fifty million burgers a year—there are endless choices!

Second Helpings