The Hamburger?

[Dr. Bob]

Howdy,

In the Jan. 18th edition of the Kansas City Star, pg. A3  "They called it the Seymour burger"  "Madison Wis.  A lawmaker wants the Wisconsin Legislature to back the claim of Seymour, Wis., as birthplace of the hamburger, now that a Texas town has made its claim.  State Rep. Tom Neslon, a Democrat, is proposing a resolution declaring that the eastern Wisconsin city is where the hamburger got its start, after he learned that a similar resolution had been proposed in Texas on behalf of the community of Athens.  Seymour Mayor Harold Pingel agreed that a resolution is needed and described the Texas claim in one work: 'Bologna.'  On its Web site, Seymour says that Charlie Nagreen created the first hamburger in 18885 at the Seymour Fair."

It would appear that the hamburger is period correct?  Probably not on a bun like we see today.  Ya learn the strangest things reading the news paper!

[Major 2]

All time High Crime , Mexicans shoot at border patrol, terrorist's attacks, Medicare , Health Ins. sky rocketing, Illegal Aliens want SS,
 we are at war !

and this Democrat is worried about the birth place of the hamburger 

Reaffirms why I'm no longer a Democrat and registered as an independent (that and Hillary    etal )

[Silver Creek Slim]

I think it's scandalous to spend taxpayer's money on things like this, but ...

Seymour is the birthplace of the WI hamburger! 
Del should be in later to set us all straight on this. 

BTW, some of my better-half's relatives live in the Seymour area.

Slim

[Advertising]

[Delmonico]

Sorry, beef that has been chopped or ground and grilled or fried dates back to at least the Greeks.  What we know as the Hamburger came to this country or so the story is told by route of Gemany, after the raw ground meat known as Steak Tarter came into that country from the east.  The origions of this is said to be the the wild men of the east who carried meat under their saddle to tenderize it and ate it raw. 

The Germans often decided they wanted it cooked so for some reason the town of Hamburg came to be know for a chopped/ground steak.  The original Delmonico's was serving a Hamburg Steak by at least the 1870's and a 1/2 pound one made from choice meat and hand ground cost more than a 24 oz Porterhouse.  I saw a menu from there one time that showed this.

The big problem is they have been trying for years to decide who first put one on a bun.  Myself I doubt that any of them were the first that claim it, I think that has long been lost to history much further back.  Of course I have the same thought about John Montagu the 4th Earl of sandwich being the first to put meat between two slices of bread.

I doubt though that the poly-titi-ions will ask my opinion or use any common logic in what is decided.

When they get this decided they can work on the claims for the Reuben Samwhich, that should be easier since Thousand Island dressing don't dat back hundreds of years like bread and chopped/ground meat.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday, for a hamburger today ...

[Delmonico]

By the 1930's when the Popeye cartoons were first starting to be made, the electric meat grinders, cheap over age cattle resulting from a depressed market and the Depression made cheap hamburgers at diners near big factories and ones located along the roads of America made the Hamburger no longer gourment food, but the food of what many would think of as lower class people.  

Of course the teenager in the junky car on a date could often afford no better. 

[Ozark Tracker]

but, didn't them burgers and frys taste good.  cheap gas, cheap to get into a movie with a date. (course we didn't think it was that cheap then)  I think they call them the good ole days.   

[Steel Horse Bailey]

YEP!

[River City John]

Lived in England a short while as a kid and they had just started up the WIMPY'S burger chain.(Around 1961)
They used horsemeat, though, if I remember correctly.

Very cheap eating. I think they ran about the equivalent of 12cents ea.
There used to be one here in Omaha after that, but it became a HENRY'S franchise not too long afterwards. Burgers were 15cents ea.

[Major 2]

When I was kid there was a Florida Chain called Royal Castle
Their burgers were much like White Castle is today about 2 1/2 " square & thin cooked with onions on a small tasty dinner type roll and pickle chip mustard & catsup.
You could get one for 10 cents, It took about 6 to make a meal, & a frosty glass mug of birch beer for 5 cents.
65 cent and you were fed...maybe not great nutrition but it was good tasting.
Royal Castle went bankrupt by the time McDonald's & BK were hitting it big,
and Mr. Singer the CEO embezzled what was left in the coffers, and bugged out to South America .

Somewhere in there White Castle, was accused of serving Horse-meat, true or not, it all but ruined them.

[Forty Rod]

Sir Basil's in Ogden and A&T Burgers in Logan, burgers at both at seventeen cents, two for thirty cents (One size, no frills, no extras - catsup, mustard, one pickle slice, chopped onion cooked in with the meat, plain white bread bun at room temperature.), five cent root beer (about 24 ounces in a frosted ice-cold glass mug, or a waxed cardboard cone with a paper bottle cap if it was to go), Blue Bell potato chips.

Sir Basil's was the first place I ever saw with a running score board out front.

OVER 6,000 SOLD. 

Last time I saw it in about 1965 it was up to 120,000, and they had added Coke and fries to the menu.

Combes in north Ogden was better: had sit-down food at five or six tables and onion rings.  Cost more, too.

[Delmonico]

We have a place here in Lincoln, been around since the late 40's, Tastee Inn and Out, serves a loose meat samwhich, went through hard times back in the 70's and 80's, nostalga has brought them back.

[Guns Garrett]

Years ago, the aircraft carrier I was on stopped for a week at Mombasa, Kenya.  While touring the town, I came upon a "Wimpy's".  All they usually put on the burger was a watery-looking ketchup, but when asked, they did reply they could put mustard on.  I asked for it, got my burger, took a big ol' bite and ....  they used Chinese mustard!!!! I swear it curled the hair in my nose !!!

[Spence]

Guns, I know the feeling!


We pulled into Patia Beach (Thailand), and the first place off the pier was this little joint offering 'authentic American food'....well, after 45 days of lobbing missiles into Afghanistan, I was really looking forward to a big honkin' burger.


'Burger', it seems, is a loose term in Thailand.  I never asked what it was, but I'll tell you this...it sure as 'ell wasn't beef!

[Trailrider]

When I was kid there was a Florida Chain called Royal Castle
Their burgers were much like White Castle is today about 2 1/2 " square & thin cooked with onions on a small tasty dinner type roll and pickle chip mustard & catsup.
You could get one for 10 cents, It took about 6 to make a meal, & a frosty glass mug of birch beer for 5 cents.
65 cent and you were fed...maybe not great nutrition but it was good tasting.
Royal Castle went bankrupt by the time McDonald's & BK were hitting it big,
and Mr. Singer the CEO embezzled what was left in the coffers, and bugged out to South America .

Somewhere in there White Castle, was accused of serving Horse-meat, true or not, it all but ruined them.

I think those were "Chicago burgers"!  There was definitely a scandel in the Windy City about some places using horsemeat instead of beef.  If they had advertised it as horsemeat, they would have been okay.  But saying it was beef when it wasn't...  Maybe that's where that outfit got the saying, "Where's the beef?"    Personally, I think it is a sacralige to eat your horse...unless you are starving, of course.  Cavalry wound up doing that at least twice.  Once during the "starvation march" at the tail end of the Big Horn & Yellowstone Expedition of 1876, under Gen. Crook, and the other was when the 26th Cav. had to just before surrendering to the Japanese on Bataan! 

Alright! Enough of this horsin' around!

So could a muleskinner have gotten a hamburger in Sidney, Nebraska, (railhead for the Black Hills) in 1876?

[Delmonico]

Most likely but it would have been served as a steak most likely.

[fourfingersofdeath]

When I was doing a hospitality management course in my younger days, They called it ' Steaks Hamburg' and referred to it as one of the classic dishes. I saw my first hamburger when I was about 12. A shop at Brighton Le Sands was selling them and we had broken down a few hundred yards from the shop. We could smell the sea and this wonderful smell of meat and onions frying, Mum and dad started talking to a guy that was working past and they asked where the smell was coming from and he told us about the shop. We left Dad minding the car and walked down there. I still remember the taste to this day some 46years later. Mum worked in a flash resturant during the war (WW2)  before she joined the Air Force and she said they used to make hamburgers for the American serviceman who ate there, but they were never sold by anybody else that we were aware of. They took off pretty quick though in the 60s.

I'm told that the Tatar steaks came from the Tartar horseman who used to put a strip of meat (whatever was available) under the saddle and by the end of the day the friction from the saddle and the sweat and heat from the horse softened it to the point that it could be torn in strips and eaten raw. In the resturants it is usually served minced with a raw egg in a half shell or a small cup in the middle of the meat to throw over it.

[boot strap jack]

my mother when 6 or 7 rembers going to a 5&10 for burgers and a coke. She is 73

[Delmonico]

I'm only 50 and remember some that had lunch counters.

[Wishbone]

I rember going to Woolworths Five & Dime when I was a Kid. Everyone always had a Lunch Counter back them. The one in Newton, Ks Closed in the '70s. My former neighbor was the Mgr of the Lunch Counter. Boy things were better in Black & White!! Now My Sons talking about that new I Phone from Apple & AT&T wireerless. $700.00 Hes 15 and makes 2 to 3 hundred bucks a week mowing Lawns. I was luckly to get 50 cents a week from folks, boy have times changed. Roy,Gene,Duke where are you?   Wishbone