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Wednesday 20 May 2015

Hamburger

A hamburger is a sandwich consisting of one or more cooked patties of ground meat, usually beef, placed inside a sliced bun. There are several claims about the origin of the hamburger.

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Frank and Charles Menches claim to have sold a ground beef sandwich at the Erie County Fair in 1885 in Hamburg, New York. The brothers arrived at the county fair a little too late to get the chopped pork they were after so the butcher gave them chopped beef instead. The ended up naming the sandwich they made from said beef after the town where they got the meat.

The Library of Congress credits Louis Lassen of Louis' Lunch sandwich shop in New Haven, Connecticut as the creator of the hamburger as we know it. He grounded a portion of beef, broiled it, and served it between two pieces of toast. Lassen's meat sandwich was derived from the 13th century Hamburg steak that was introduced to the Germans by the Tartars. German immigrants arriving in North America brought this steak dish with them.

Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas was said in the 1880s to have opened a lunch counter in his hometown and served a 'burger' of fried ground beef patties with mustard and Bermuda onion between two slices of bread, with a pickle on the side. In 1904, Davis and his wife Ciddy ran a sandwich stand at the St. Louis World's Fair  at the amusement area, known as The Pike. His ground beef patty sandwich proved popular there and fairgoers took their taste home with them and  experimented with their own versions of this hamburger.

During World War 1, the United States Government tried to rename hamburgers as "liberty sandwiches" to promote patriotism.

Before cola became widespread, the hamburger was typically served with coffee.

The trademark for the name "cheeseburger" was awarded to Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In, in Denver, Colorado in 1935. They were first served the previous year at Kaolin's restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky.

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The global hamburger fast food chain Burger King, known for its signature item the Whopper was founded in Miami, Florida in 1954. James McLamore and David Edgerton sold burgers and milkshakes for 18 cents each.

In 1982 the town of Rutland, North Dakota, made the World's Largest Hamburger, weighing a huge 3,591 pounds, which took a total of 8,000 people to consume.

Max Hamburgers is the first hamburger restaurant ever to outcompete McDonald's, forcing them to close their restaurant in LuleƄ, Sweden, in 1991. When McDonald's returned to the city a few years later, the popularity of Max Hamburgers once again forced McDonald's out of business in 2007.

 North Korean leader Kim Jong-il claimed in 2000 to have invented the hamburger.

In 2003, the animal rights group Peta offered the town of Hamburg New York, $15,000 worth of veggieburgers to changes its name to Veggieburg.

In 2007, Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, set a record for the world's largest hamburger offered for sale. It weighed 123lb.

Americans eat nearly 50 billion burgers a year, which translates to three burgers a week for every single person in the United States.

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The Japanese TV show Honma Dekka!? hired three researchers—experts in fluid mechanics, engineering, and dentistry—to determine the best way to hold a hamburger. After four months of research, they concluded that your pinkie and thumb should be on the bottom, while the remaining fingers should be on top of the hamburger.

The Hamburger hall of fame is located in Seymour, Wisconsin.

In Oklahoma, it's actually illegal to take a bite out of another person's hamburger.

McDonald's sells more than 75 hamburgers every second. In total it has sold about 300 billion.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce

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