The “hamburger” or “Hamburg
steak” is said to have been served at Delmonico’s
Restaurant in New York in 1834. But it was served
on a plate, not as a sandwich.
Early recipes seldom referred to serving the patty on bread or toast.
Who invented the hamburger sandwich? That’s a matter in contention, as
is the identity of the originator of the cheeseburger.
Two brothers, Frank and Charles Menches, often are credited with having invented
the hamburger sandwich. The brothers, who lived in Ohio, were traveling concessionaires,
selling ground pork sandwiches at county fairs.
One day in 1885, so the story goes, they went to a butcher for ground pork, but
he had run out of it. The Menches bought chopped beef from him, instead, and
found that their customers at the Erie County Fair in New York liked the product.
While that well might be, the further claim that the sandwich got its name from
the suburb in which the fair took place — Hamburg — is doubtful since
the term “hamburger” was already in use to describe cooked chopped
beef.
Louis Lassen of New Haven, Conn., also is portrayed as the inventor of the hamburger
sandwich. It seems that Lassen sold steak sandwiches from his lunch wagon and
would take home trimmings which he ground and made into patties or meatloaf for
his family. He’s said to have started serving the patties on bread to customers
in 1900.
Charlie “Hamburger” Nagreen made claim to having served the first
hamburger sandwich in 1885 at the Seymour Fair in Wisconsin. His concoction was
a flattened meatball between slices of bread.
Fletcher “Old Dave” Davis of Athens, Texas, is thought by some to
have been the originator of the hamburger at his lunch counter in the late 1880s.
It apparently was “Old Dave” who sold the hamburgers at the 1904
St. Louis World’s Fair. The hamburger attracted press attention there,
and the birth of the hamburger is frequently associated with that event.
John E. Harmon, professor of geography at Central Connecticut State University,
points out in his “Atlas of Popular Culture in the Northeastern United
States” that none of these tales of the invention of the hamburger sandwich
entails use of a bun. Each of these first burgers “was first served between
bread or (in New Haven) toast,” he notes, commenting:
“This is in marked contrast to the stories about the hot dog where the
development of the bun was more critical to the sandwich.”
The first hot dog on a bun is said to have been sold in 1904 at the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition in St. Louis by Anton Feuchtwanger. He had been providing
customers with white gloves with which to eat his frankfurters but ran out of
the gloves, and obtained some buns from a baker to hold the sausages.
Lionel Sternberger is said to have invented the “cheese hamburger” in
1926 at his Pasadena hamburger stand at 1500 W. Colorado Blvd., on Route 66.
Jeffrey Tennyson, in his 1995 book, “Hamburger Heaven, the Illustrated
History of the Hamburger,” proclaims that stand to have been the true birthplace
of the cheeseburger.
Others, however, have claimed that distinction.
Kaelin’s Restaurant in Louisville, Ky., insists that the cheesburger was
invented by Carl and Margaret Kaelin on Oct. 12, 1934. Mrs. Kaelin was frying
burgers with one hand, holding a couple slices of cheese left from the children’s
lunch, it’s said, when Mr. Kaelin happened by, suggesting she toss the
cheese on a patty. Upon sampling the experimental dish, he concluded it should
be placed on the menu. The restaurant provides substantiation of its claim that
it has served cheeseburgers since 1934: a menu with that date reading, “Try
Kaelin’s Cheese, burgers ... 15 cents ... You’ll like ‘em.” Each
year, the mayor of Louisville declares Oct. 12 “Cheeseburger Day.”
In Denver, Colo., a granite monument stands where the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In
once was, bearing the inscription: “On this site in 1935, Louis E. Ballast
created the cheeseburger.” Ballast, proprietor of the establishment, reportedly
concocted his cheeseburger after unsuccessfully experimenting with other combinations,
including peanut butter burgers.
Next time: a look at recipes for hamburger in old cookbooks.
The "55-Plus" column
is written especially for those over the age of 55, by a veteran California
journalist who is himself eligible for the club. Roger M. Grace has written
and edited newspapers for more than four decades, and has been a lawyer for
more than three.
Governor
Proposes Reduced Funding for Seniors’ Programs
Who
Invented the Hamburger Sandwich and the Cheeseburger? 