A hamburger (or burger) is a sandwich consisting 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.

Definition

Hamburger also refers to the cooked patty of ground meat by itself."hamburger." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com The patty alone is also known as a beefburger, or hamburger steak. Adding cheese makes it a cheeseburger. Hamburger is actually a distinct product from ground round and other types of ground meat. However, ground beef of any form is often commonly referred to as "hamburger." A recipe calling for 'hamburger' (the non-countable noun) would require ground beef or beef substitute- not a whole sandwich. The word hamburger comes from Hamburg steak, which originated in the German city of Hamburg. Contrary to what folk etymology might lead one to believe, there is no actual 'ham' in a hamburger.

Modern History

The following people, or restaurants, claim to have either "invented" the hamburger as it is known today, or a unique cooking method.

• Charlie Nagreen 1885, Seymour, Wisconsin. According to one claim of the first hamburger, Charlie Nagreen served the world's first hamburger at the Seymour Fair (Outagamie County Fair) of 1885. "Hamburger" Charlie decided to flatten a meatball and place it between slices of bread to increase portability.
• Menches brothers 1885, Hamburg, New York. Western New York history recorded 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 up, but found it bland. They added coffee, brown sugar, and other ingredients to create a taste which stands distinct without condiments. They christened 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 the shorter contraction "hamburger" (and so explaining why a beef sandwich--which never contained any pork--bears this name). A little known fact is that the Original Hamburger indeed had its own recipe spiced with coffee and brown sugar - much different from what most Americans have tasted over the last one hundred years. The original recipe is featured at Menches Brothers Restaurants in Akron, Ohio.
• Fletcher Davis late 1880s, Athens, Texas. In 1974, The New York Times ran a story about Louis' Lunch having a serious challenger to the title of inventing the hamburger. According to the McDonald's hamburger chain the inventor was an unknown food vendor at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Newspaper columnist, Texas historian, and restaurateur Frank X. Tolbert said that this food vendor was Fletcher Davis. Davis operated a café at 115 Tyler Street on the north side of the courthouse square in Athens, Texas, in the late 1880s. Local lore holds that Davis was selling an unnamed sandwich of ground beef at his lunch counter at that time. During the 1980s Dairy Queen ran a commercial filmed in Athens, calling the town the birthplace of the hamburger.
• Louis Lassen 1900, New Haven, Connecticut. Louis' Lunch has been selling steak and hamburger since 1895 when it opened as a 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 hamburger 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 while they cook. The U.S. Library of Congress American Folklife Center Local Legacies Project web site credits Louis' Lunch as the maker of America's first hamburger and steak sandwich..
• Dyer's Burgers, 1912, Memphis, TN, deep-fried burgers using a cast-iron skillet.
• White Castle, 1921, Wichita, Kansas. Due to widely prevalent anti-German sentiment in the U.S. during World War I, an alternative name for hamburgers was salisbury steak. Even after the war, hamburgers' popularity was severely depressed until the White Castle chain of restaurants created a business model featuring sales of large numbers of small hamburgers. White Castle holds a U.S trademark on "slyders".
• Ted's Restaurant, 1959, Meriden, Connecticut. Ted's Restaurant uses steam to cook their cheeseburgers. Some people believe that steam was used to cook hamburgers in the early 1900s in this part of Connecticut.