Fast Break: Hamburgers

What makes a burger a burger? Ham? Turkey? Tofu? Black beans? Rare? Medium? Well-done? We all have our favorite toppings, from bacon to portabella mushrooms to just loads of melted cheese. Some enjoy a burger on a pretzel bun, brioche, or skip the bun altogether and pile it on top of some delicious fresh lettuce. However you enjoy it, Americans eat about 40 million of them a year. One could say they’re a pretty popular dish.
 
People have been squishing ground meat into patties since the days of Genghis Khan. When the Mongol army invaded Russia, the Russians adopted this delicacy and called it ‘steak tartare.’ The German port of Hamburg got ahold of steak tartare, and well, you can see why we call hamburgers hamburgers.
 
Immigrants brought the skill of cooking Hamburg steak over with them, a dish that was cheap and easy to make: just get some ground up meat, add some spices, cook it, and there you go. It wasn’t until meat grinders came along in the 1800s that Hamburg steak became hamburger. By the mid 1800’s hamburgers were beginning to show up on menus.
 
Where the real debate begins is deciding who put the first hamburger on a bun, creating the classic American dish. Whether is was Charlie selling burgers at a Wisconsin fair or Louis at his lunch spot in Connecticut, it’s clear American would have invented the sandwich sooner or later. Hamburgers, along with peanut butter, waffles cones, and ice cream, made it big at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, and the rest, we could say, is history.
For something a little different, I would suggest trying the Lost Highway Burger at Sunny Street Café: Black Angus Beef burger, over-medium egg, grilled onions, and habanero jack cheese.
 

Anna Hetzel, Social Media Manager