What the hell is a hamburger? Why is it called a HAM burger? There is no damn ham, Sam I am. I don't call a tuna sandwich a steak sandwich, so why the hell should I call my beefburger a hamburger. OR, why the hell do I let crap like this bother me, that would be a better question.
A German merchant - it is said - noticed that the nomadic Tartars softened their meat by keeping it under their saddles. The motion of the horse pounded the meat to bits. The Tartars would then scrape it together and season it for eating. The idea of pounded beef found its way back to the merchant's home town of Hamburg where cooks broiled the meat and referred to it as it as Hamburg meat. "Ah HA! Now where getting somewhere!" This might also explain the term "beat your meat", but that's just my theory.
German immigrants introduced the recipe to the US. The term "hamburger" is believed to have appeared in 1834 on the menu from Delmonico's restaurant in New York but there is no surviving recipe for the meal. The first mention in print of "Hamburg steak" was made in 1884 in the Boston Evening Journal.
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The first proper hamburger goes to Charlie Nagreen. In 1885 He introduced the American hamburger at the County Fair in Seymour WI. (Seymour is recognized as the hamburger capital of the world.)
However, there is another claim to that throne. There is an account of Frank and Charles Menches who, also in 1885, went to the Hamburg, New York county fair to prepare their famous pork sausage sandwiches. But since the local meat market was out of pork sausage, they used ground beef instead. Alas, another hamburger.
The first account of serving ground meat patties on buns - taking on the look of the hamburger as we know it today - took place in 1904 at the St. Louis World Fair. But it was many years later, in 1921, that an enterprising cook from Wichita, Kansas, Walt Anderson, introduced the concept of the hamburger restaurant. He convinced a financier to invest $700 to create The White Castle hamburger chain. It was an instant success. The rest of the history, we might say, belongs to McDonald's.
So I guess the bottom line is - "Who gives a shit", just go grind up some dead cow, throw it on the grill and enjoy your "burger" - even if it has no ham in it at all. And again, I know what your thinking. "That's what I said before I even started reading this page!" Yeah, yeah .. Shut Your Beef Hole!
284 days until retirement. Stay tuned for possible exciting changes to this number.
Todays RBV:
So EVERY business woman out there wearing a suit, you are ALL abominations! And I guess I am too since I wear my wifes panties, but only on Sundays.
