Welcome back to our series sharing Food Holidays: April 2022: National Hamburger Month. I don’t know about you but I could eat a Hamburger Everday day and still want another one. How about you? The funny part Charlie and David are just like me. If we hadn’t packed the Grill away I would have asked Charlie to make Bacon Stuffed Hamburgers for dinner this evening. But with us packing it might be easier to ask David to pick up Hamburgers for dinner this evening. Would you like to join us for dinner?
National Hamburger Month
During National Hamburger Month, May of every year, it’s only natural to wonder about the origins of America’s Hamburgers. Who is the true inventor? From what Country or State did Hamburgers emigrate to our U.S. restaurant tables and backyard grills? We can faithfully report that there are almost as many claims of inventorship as there are Hamburger styles. Which of course comprise every variation from Kobe Beef to Vegetarian Meat substitutes to the popular 80/20 ground beef.
The name “Hamburger” derives, of course, from the City of Hamburg, Germany. Some residents of Hamburg were headed as far West as the Eastern Shores of the United States during the 18th Century. Many of them brought a snack called the “Hamburgh Sausage.” This snack, like its cousin the “Rundstück warm,” combined a Meatball similar to the Swedish Meatball with a slice of Bread. Here is a bit of trivia for your first barbecue this Spring: the words “Wiener” and “Frankfurter” also derive from the names of German Cities, Vienna and Frankfurt.
HISTORY OF NATIONAL HAMBURGER MONTH
As far as credit for the transformation of the European meat sandwiches into the sesame-seed bun, wide patty, condiment and leaf-laden burger we know today? You might as well draw a name out of a hat. We’ll tell you that among the first to serve American Hamburgers were the owners of the first White Castle restaurants, who in turn spread the story of the Hamburger’s invention by a chef named Otto Kuase whose sandwich included a Fried Egg on top of the Patty; later the Egg was later omitted.
The other main component to remember about the Hamburger’s origin is its presence at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. At that event, Hamburgers were served and became popular enough to become a de facto exhibit of their own. Writing up the Fair, the “New York Tribune” called the new Hamburger “the innovation of a food vendor on the pike,” the word ‘pike’ meaning the fair’s midway, a mile-long span that showcased amusements and activities. History has revealed the vendor in question to be the late Fletcher Davis. Counterclaims have been made in print and oral histories, but we accept them as more variables in the mists of time that have obscured the Hamburger’s precise birth.
HOW TO CELEBRATE NATIONAL HAMBURGER MONTH
- Considering the preponderance of digestive peculiarities in today’s America, you might need to include Gluten-free Buns and Tofu-base Patties, but now is the perfect time to flip Hamburgers for your family and friends. It’s an old-standing American tradition, and May has the perfect weather for Barbeque.
- We all have our favorite Hamburger, our tried-and-trues. But in honor of a whole month of Hamburger love, go ahead and explore. You could have an Angus Hamburger, Chili, Buffalo, Vegan, or other varieties which are available right down the road at the local grocery. Use your chef’s intuition and cook up something new!
- It’s a given that the internet is chock-full of fascinating facts, of all kinds. Everyone has an opinion about everything, with America’s favorite food no exception spend today learning more about the Hamburger.
FIVE FACTS ABOUT MCDONALD’S
- ” Until the year 1990, there was a McDonald’s restaurant that was not beholden to the rules, regulations and standards of all the other franchise and corporate stores, which was owned by the original McDonald brothers.
- Since the Armed Services regulation AR 670-1 and the Uniform Code of Military Justice prevented Soldiers from getting out of their cars to go into McDonald’s restaurants, in 1975 drive-through service was added to McDonald’s branches near a Military base in Arizona.
- In 1940 in San Bernardino, California, the first McDonald’s opened, specializing not in Hamburgers, but in Barbecue foods.
- Ray Kroc was the “multi-mixer” salesman who sold McDonald’s their first order of the milkshake machines, and Ray Kroc saw the potential of the company, going on to purchase franchise rights and going down in history.
- The Ronald McDonald House Charities, whose people help sick children and their parents, raised around $450 million in the year 2013, alleviating the suffering of many families.
WHY WE LOVE NATIONAL HAMBURGER MONTH
- There’s no denying that the Hamburger is America’s favorite food. The numbers are there to back up the claim. People eat 50 billion Hamburgers a year! That’s three Hamburgers a week for every single person in our great land.
- A Hamburger, beverage, and French Fries. Who doesn’t love to have all three? It’s like Apple Pie and Fourth of July fireworks. We’ve even heard Vegetarians and Vegans driving two or three towns away from where they live, to indulge!
- Hamburgers are not only the food eaten most often, but Hamburgers are also the top selling food in the U.S. We looked into how Hamburgers competed with delivery and frozen Pizza. It turned out that Pizza isn’t even a close second to the Hamburger.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
