Seth Bronson - Week 6: On the Origin of Hamburgers

One major feature of what makes American culture so difficult to define is the fact that many things that are considered to be American cultural traditions are in reality assimilated from other cultures. Whether they be food, words, or holidays, many things only celebrated in the U.S. are not really original, but pirated. It’s important to know where to draw the line, so today I’ll be talking about one of the most quintessentially American foods in existence: the hamburger.

The hamburger is a staple food served in fast-food restaurants across the States, but it didn’t start out that way. The earliest instance of the hamburger’s existence that I’m willing to credit (I don’t count the Mongols' formation of patties in the 13th century) was in a Hamburg steak in Germany. This was later adapted in the U.S., but a notable feature of the dish was that it was not developed here, but in Germany.

To further complicate things, there are a couple of contrasting claims about who really invented the hamburger first. Some argue that a man flattened meatballs at a county fair in Wisconsin, while others claim that its origins lie in Texas. Whatever the case, the only continuity between these stories seems to be that no one can agree on when, where, and how the hamburger came to existence.

Instead of remaining daunted by this flurry of contrasting opinions, let me suggest that perhaps the conflict over the hamburger’s origins is part of what makes it American. Nations rarely settle matters of culture in as neat a way as Darwinistic Evolution, but the adaptations that they bring are often more inventive than an explainable, neat evolutionary chain. And besides, who can agree on what food is really the best anyways?