Posted by Adam Kuban, January 17, 2007 at 12:38 PM
Yesterday we mentioned the controversy over the birthplace of the burger, in which we admitted to "web-based research." The good news is that we have real historians interested in the topic; the bad news is that they're as confounded as everyone else. From American Heritage magazine's Mysteries of American History file. As our source for this link said, "The dispute seems to hinge on whether the lump of chopped beef was served on bread or a roll, and whether the roll was a true hamburger roll, and other such Jesuitical distinctions."
Around 1900 Louis’ Lunch in New Haven was serving a broiled beef-patty sandwich, but that was on sliced bread, not the roll, as essential to the classic hamburger as potatoes are to clam chowder. I managed to trace a rapid infiltration of a “hamburger” item into lunch wagons and carnival lots well before World War I but turned up no definite point where the roll took over. People kept telling me roll-hamburgers first appeared at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. But local archives had no trace of such a thing, nor did Thomas Hart Benton when I asked him about it: "No, sir, I had a growing boy’s appetite, and I was all over that fair every day—no hamburgers."
In an editor's note to that item, American Heritage says:
Light on this comes from Thomas C. Dolly, of Omaha, Nebraska, who describes himself as an “old-time drive-in operator” and who sent us a monograph he prepared on the growth of the hamburger chains. Dolly cites Walter Anderson, a Wichita, Kansas, diner operator who “invented the fast-food hamburger, which ultimately changed the eating habits of America and a sizable portion of the world.” In 1916 Anderson “found that by mashing a ball of ground beef flat and frying at high temperature [he] not only speeded up the cooking time, but vastly improved the flavor and texture as well.” Thus inspired, Anderson went on to invent the modern grill and finally talked a Wichita bakery into creating a special bun for him. On this foundation he built the White Castle chain.
And the point goes to KANSAS! Where's the beef, baby!
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Yesterday we mentioned the controversy over the birthplace of the burger, in which we admitted to "web-based research." The good news is that we have real historians interested in the topic; the bad news is that they're as confounded as everyone else. From American Heritage magazine's Mysteries of American History file. As our source for this link said, "The dispute seems to hinge on whether the lump of chopped beef was served on bread or a roll, and whether the roll was a true hamburger roll, and other such Jesuitical distinctions."
