WHERE’S THE BEEF
By Duncan
CLARA PELLER - “WHERE’S THE BEEF?”
I was wandering around on the internet the other day. I read a survey (And don’t we love surveys) listing the ten best hamburger joints in the United States. The best in the United States? Only ten? Then, another very authoritative survey listed the best hamburger joints in every state. I got to thinking: how many people did they ask, and what were the criteria for determining the “Best of the Best?”
As I continued, there were more surveys on hamburger joints than I could count. None of the surveys listed the same hamburger place as being number one. Each survey said the “Best” was a different restaurant. Imagine that! So, you ask one person, and they say their place is the best. You ask another person and he or she says Oh my, you have got to try “this” place, it’s the best! So, can I assume that these surveys are nothing more than “Clickbait?”
The question from the Wendy's ad campaign back in the 1980s asked, "Where was the beef?" It seems good ol Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s was looking for a way to cut into the Micky-Dee traffic. And I guess the ad campaign worked quite nicely. Wendy’s experienced a 30% increase in business.
Well, then my next question is, why do they call it a Hamburger? There is no ham in a hamburger.
This could be a long story, but I'll keep it short. Was it something to do with Hamburg, Germany? Did someone notice a banner at the St. Louis Fair in 1904 and decided to call his smatched beef hockey puck on a hot piece of metal a “hamburger?” Maybe.
Who invented the hamburger anyway? This is an easy question. Right? It’s not!
This argument can be made all over the United States. Who made the first hamburger? The argument spans from Athens, Texas, Seymour, Wisconsin, New Haven, Connecticut, and beyond. Hamburger historians can go back to Genghis Kahn. But I see no need to suggest Genghis had the Golden Arches in 1238.
We could talk about raw minced meat in the 1600s being traded out of Hamberg to the Russians as they exchanged food, spices, and clothes. The Russians traded a product they called steak tartare. (Oh, is that where that came from?) And Germany found a way of salting and smoking Russian steak tartare meat.
And by 1802 The Oxford English Dictionary included “Hamburg Steak” which is a slab of salted beef, smoked and mixed with onion and bread crumbs.
Let’s keep the question right here in the good old USA. By the 1840s/50s, immigrants from Hamburg, Germany, brought their salted beef steak to America. You can see where this is going, right? So, let’s jump ahead to around 1885 to 1904. And this is where a lot of historians have concluded that the “Hamburger” as we know it, got its start.
The Athens, Texas folk named Fletcher Davis the first person to invent the hamburger. Of course, there is other evidence that that might not be the case at all. But with all the research and questions about this and that, I’m not sure there is any hard evidence that our pal Fletcher Davis is number one. He may be the first or second, but I'm not sure about the “very first.”
There is one big problem with the Fletcher Davis story. In New Haven, Conn., If you ask who invented the first hamburger, this will be the answer, Louis Lassen, in 1900.
The story goes like this: A local businessman dashed into the small New Haven lunch wagon one day in 1900 and asked for a lunch to go. According to the Lassen family, the customer exclaimed,
"Louie! I'm in a rush; slap a meat puck between two planks and step on it!"
Lassen placed his blend of ground steak trimmings between two slices of toast and sent the gentleman on his way, so the story goes.
Here is the problem with this story. Louis used “steak trimming” on toast, not a bun, and therefore, the “Nick-Pickers” say this was a “Steak Sandwich,” not a hamburger. Or at least that is the argument that is given for finding the first person who made the first hamburger.
I could cite other men around the country doing the same thing. But it would simply be a repeat of the same story in a different town. So, moving forward again, we need to mention Walter Anderson.
In 1916, Walter invented a heavy bread recipe that was big enough for one hamburger. He called it a “Bun.” Five years later, he co-founded White Castle with Edgar “Billy” Ingram, and the world's first burger chain was born.
As I leave you, think about this. In 2009, PETA offered Hamburg, New York, $15,000 worth of non-meat patties to change the town’s name to Veggieburg, New York. Hamburg, New York declined.
