Legend of the burger

Have you ever wondered where the first hamburger on a bun came from? There is a dispute about who made the first hamburger and bun in America, and Seymour, Wisconsin claims that it was first made in their town by Charles Nagreen in 1885. They are so certain about this claim that they even have a Hamburger Hall of Fame. Wisconsin now claims to be “Home of the Hamburger” and holds an annual Burger Festival in August of every year with a ketchup slide, bun toss, and hamburger-eating contest, as well as the “world’s largest hamburger parade.”

The claims are as follows:

1885 – Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin, at the age of 15, sold hamburgers from his ox-drawn food stand at the Outagamie County Fair. He went to the Outagamie County Fair and set up a stand selling meatballs. Business wasn’t good and he quickly realized that it was because meatballs were too difficult to eat while strolling around the fair. In a flash of innovation, he flattened the meatballs, placed them between two slices of bread and called his new creation a hamburger. Hamburger Charlie returned to sell hamburgers at the fair every year until his death in 1951.

1891 – Otto Kuasw was a cook in a restaurant on the waterfront in Hamburg, Germany, made a sandwich that the sailors who stopped at the port like very much. It was made with a thin patty of ground beef sausage fried in butter. A fried egg was placed on top of the meat and then placed between two slices of lightly buttered bread. This sandwich as known to the sailors as Deutsches Beefsteak. In 1894, sailors who had been to Hamburg and visited the port of New York, told restaurant owners about Otto’s great sandwiches and the restaurants began making the sandwiches for the sailors. It is said that all the sailors had to do was to ask for a “hamburger.”

1885 – The family of Frank and Charles Menches from Stark County, Ohio, claim they invented the hamburger while traveling a circuit of fairs at event in the Midwest in the early 1880s. According to legend, the brothers ran out of pork on one particular day when high heat and humidity forced butchers to stop slaughtering pigs. The brothers then substituted ground beef in their sauage patty sandwiches. They called this sandwich the hamburger after Hamburg, New York where the fair was being held.

1900 – Louis Lassen of New Haven, Connecticut is also recorded as serving the first “burger” at his New Haven luncheonette called Louis’ Lunch in 1890. He ground up some scraps of beef and served it as a sandwich to a customer who was in a hurry and wanted to eat on the run. Kenneth Lassen, Louis’ grandson, was quoted in the 1991 Review Staff as saying; “We have signed, dated and notarized affidavits saying we served the first hamburger sandwiches in 1900. Other people may have been serving the steak but there’s a big difference between a hamburger steak and a hamburger sandwich.”

1904 – Most Texans seem to think that the real beginning of the hamburger was when Fletch Davis (also known as “old Dave”) from Athens, Texas decided to try something new in 1904. He took some raw hamburger steak and placed it on his flat grill and fried it until it was a crisp brown on both sides. Then he placed the browned patty of meat between two thick slices of homemade toast and added a thick slice of raw onion to the top. He offered it as a special to his patrons to see if they would like it. Well, it didn’t take long for word to spread that Old Dave had cooked up the best darn sandwich in Texas. At the urging of his friends and family, he opened up a concession stand and began selling the ground beef patty sandwich at the amusement area, known as The Pike, at the St. Louis World’s Fair Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in 1904.

1916 – Walter Anderson, a fry cook, developed buns to accomodate the hamburger patties. The dough he selected was heavier than ordinary bread dough, and he formed it into small, square shapes that were just big enough for one of his hamburgers. He quit his job as a cook and used his life savings to purchase an old trolley car and developed it into a diner featuring his hamburgers.

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