A hamburger (or burger) consists of a cooked ground meat patty, usually beef, placed in a sliced bun or between pieces of bread or toast. Hamburgers are often served with various condiments, such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, relish etc. as well as lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and cheese. Fact: date=May 2009

American origins

The following American restaurants claim to have either invented the hamburger sandwich, or to have developed a unique cooking method:

• Charlie Nagreen 1885, Seymour, Wisconsin. According to one claim , Charlie Nagreen served the world's first hamburger at the Seymour Fair (Outagamie County Fair) of 1885 when he would have been fifteen years old. "Hamburger" Charlie decided to flatten a meatball and place it between slices of bread to increase portability Fact: date=May 2009.
• Menches brothers 1885, Hamburg, New York. Western New York history records that Frank and Charles Menches ran out of pork for their sausage patty sandwiches at the 1885 Erie County Fair. Their supplier, reluctant to butcher more hogs in the summer heat, suggested they use beef instead . The brothers fried some but found it bland. They added coffee, brown sugar, and other ingredients to create a distinct taste without condiments. They named their creation the "Hamburg Sandwich" after Hamburg, New York where the fair has been held since 1868; the name was probably later condensed by common use to "hamburger", which may explain why a beef sandwich - which never contained any pork - bears this name. The original recipe is featured at Menches Brothers Restaurants in Akron, OhioFact: date=April 2009.
• Louis' Lunch 1900, New Haven, Connecticut . Louis' Lunch has been selling steak and hamburger since 1895 when Louis Lassen opened his lunch wagon.. This small establishment, which advertises itself as the oldest hamburger restaurant in the U.S., is credited by some with having invented the classic American hamburger when Louis sandwiched a pattie between two pieces of white toast for a busy office worker in 1900.. Louis' Lunch flame broils the hamburgers in the original 1898 Bridge & Beach vertical cast iron gas stoves using locally patented steel wire gridirons to hold the hamburgers in place during cooking U.S. Patent #2,148,879 . In 1974, The New York Times published a story about Louis' Lunch claiming to have invented the hamburger. The U.S. Library of Congress American Folklife Center Local Legacies Project website credits Louis' Lunch as the maker of America's first hamburger and steak sandwich The hamburger is still served today on two pieces of toast and not a bun.
• Fletcher Davis 1904, St. Louis, Missouri. According to the McDonald's hamburger chain , the inventor was an unknown food vendor at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Newspaper columnist, Texas historian, and restaurateur Frank X. Tolbert said that this food vendor was Fletcher Davis fact: date=April 2009. Davis had operated a café at 115 Tyler Street in Athens, Texas in the late 1880s. Local lore holds that Davis was selling an unnamed sandwich of ground beef at his lunch counter . During the 1980s Dairy Queen produced a television advertisement, filmed in Athens, calling the town the birthplace of the hamburger .