Although it was named for a town in Germany and its ancestry goes back to tribes of Mongolian cowherds known as Tartars, the hamburger is as close as this country comes to a national dish. Exactly where and when it was invented is a hot topic among the hamburger’s would-be hometowns. Origins arguments depend on a clear answer to the fundamental question: What is a hamburger? People have eaten ground beef for centuries. But hamburger history begins with the act of making the beef into a patty and putting it between slices of bread, or possibly in a bun or on a roll, thus making it a no-fork phenomenon, at least theoretically.
Hamburger: Hodad’s, Ocean Beach, California.
Credible claims of this occurrence come from New Haven, Connecticut (1900: thrifty sandwich-maker Louis Lassen finds a use for the trimmings of his steak sandwiches); St. Louis (1904: Fletcher “Old Dave” Davis of Athens, Texas, presents his ground beef sandwich at the World’s Fair); Hamburg, New York (1885: the Menches brothers’ sandwich stand at the Erie County fair runs out of pork, so beef is substituted); and Seymour, Wisconsin (1885: at the Outagamie County Fairgrounds “Hamburger Charlie” Nagreen flattens a meatball and serves it on bread). No one doubts, however, Seymour’s claim to have made the world’s largest hamburger—5520 pounds—in 1989, as part of the town’s summer Burger Fest.
Hamburgers are less geographically specific than, say, hot dogs, but some parts of the country claim their own unique variation. West of Oklahoma City, along old Route 66, is onion-fried burger territory. Central Connecticut is home to about a half-dozen restaurants that all make steamed cheeseburgers, a regional specialty so geographically focused that even people in eastern and western Connecticut have never heard of it. Other significant subsets of the hamburger include the green chile cheeseburger (New Mexico), the butter burger (Wisconsin), and the slider (universal).
Hamburger: The Cottage, La Jolla, California.
Galleyburger at the Anchor Bar, Superior, Wisconsin.