Where's The Beef?

Some people read The Guardian.

Other people prefer The Times. Or The Economist. Or Heat Magazine.

Me? I like to kick back with a hot cup of tea, a warm, fudgy brownie, and a copy of the Wetherspoon News.

And who wouldn’t, with articles like New Hotel Is A Boon For The Toon, Much More To Cider Than Apples, and Loo Of The Year, or poetry that contains the immortal line

'The bee’s knees?

More like the knees freeze'

Ok, it mostly consists of me pointing at photos of pubs and going ooh, look, I've been to that one. But, given that my job title is ‘girl who follows food trends like a bear chasing a salmon’, I usually pick it up to see what new menu items they have.

This edition, to advertise their new burger range, the WN editors have gone all food historian, and decided to give a brief history of the hamburger. The whole two-hundred year history of one of the world’s favourite sandwiches, condensed into five sentences.

Five brief, uncitated, suspiciously-Google-influenced sentences.

Hmm.

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'The ‘Hamburg steak’, made from ground beef, onion, and seasoning, originated in Germany in the 19th century and was taken to the US by German immigrants. The dish subsequently became popular in America of the 1870s, in New York restaurants.'

The history of the hamburger is long and storied. There are essays about it. This isn’t one of them.

But there is absolutely no proof that it came from Hamburg. Suggesting that Germany invented ground meat with seasonings ignores forcemeat, the kofta, the plejskavica, the chapli, the meatball. Ground meat patties may have been taken to the USA from the ports of Hamburg, but they certainly didn’t originate there.

As for it having been invented in the 19th century, here's a recipe for a ‘Hamburgh Sausage’ in Hannah Glasse’s 1763 recipe book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy.

'It is believed that it was around 1880-1900 when the meat was married with the bun, for a convenient portable sandwich.'

Show a photograph of a hamburger to an American before 1916 and they’ll probably say ‘boy howdy, that’s one fancy-lookin’ sandwich’ and then immediately die of dysentery.

Contrary to what any McDonald’s advert would have you believe, the original hamburger sandwich was just that - a sandwich. Two slices of white bread, a ground beef patty, ketchup and mustard. Hamburgers on buns don’t start to become common until the first branch of the US restaurant chain White Castle opens in 1921.

'Early claims to the first sandwich, or burger in a bun as we know it today, include Charlie Nagreen (Wisconsin, 1885), Frank and Charles Menches (Ohio, 1885), Oscar Bilby (Oklahoma, 1891), and Louis Lassen (Connecticut, 1900) at Louis’ Lunch, serving the first ‘hamburger sandwich’ as a quick meal.'

Most invention claims for the hamburger fall between the 1880s and 1904, just when mechanical meat grinders became easily available. Any of the above names given can lay claim to the idea that they ‘invented’ the hamburger-as-a-sandwich - but, more likely, they all had similar ideas at a similar time, facilitated by widespread mechanisation, easier meat processing, and a rise in quick, cheap, grab-and-go dining.

'The burger went on to gain huge popularity at the St Louis World’s Fair in 1904.'

The selling of hamburgers at the 1904 World’s Fair may have brought the hamburger to a slightly wider audience, but, given that claims of invention of the dish range from Texas to Connecticut, you can’t really say that the Fair itself was the reason for its rising popularity.

Fletcher Davis, from Athens, TX, was a potter who, for some reason (boredom? an affair? the Edwardian equivalent of buying a motorbike when you turn 45?), decided to sell hamburgers at the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis. This was mentioned in one single article in the New York Tribune following the World’s Fair, where it was described as ‘the innovation of a food vendor on the pike’.

Conversely, there were several newspaper articles published across the US that year warning of the dangers of eating hamburgers.

These concerns were short-lived, with food handling regulations being heavily impacted by the publication of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in 1905. Hamburgers moved from the backyard, the grill, and the campsite to become firm family favourites at the dinner table.

Hamburgers arrived in England with the first London Wimpy bar in 1954, and now, from drive-thrus to gastropubs, you’ll find them on menus across the UK. Whether you’re a fan of a smash burger, a slider, or a double-double with cheese, the sky’s the limit when it comes to these classic sandwiches.

Just don’t forget the fries.

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If all that’s put you in the mood for a good burger, served on a soft, vegan, historically-inaccurate brioche bun, here are some of our top Bristol recommendations:

The Lazy Dog, 112 Ashley Down Road, Bristol, BS7 9JR

The Spotted Cow, 139 North Street, Bristol, BS3 1EZ

Mud Dock Cafe, 40 The Grove, Bristol, BS1 4RB

The Ox, The Basement, 43 Corn Street, Bristol, BS1 1HT