Burgers Are Pretty Tasty

By Max Epstein

Hello everybody! Today, I will talk to you about the hamburger, a much praised and beloved food. It has become iconic over time, and is probably the most famous food in the world. This is all thanks to . . . well, there is much dispute over who created the hamburger. This dispute mainly derives from whether or not the hamburger is from Germany, the United States, or Denmark. People who think Germany created the hamburger say that credit goes to Otto Kuase. The story for Otto Kuase goes that in 1891, he served a “burger” at his lunch counter made of fried ground beef patties with mustard and Bermuda onion between two slices of bread, with a pickle on the side. This claim is endorsed by the famous fast food restaurant White Castle, an argument used by Otto Kuase supporters: if such a popular fast food chain is supporting this argument, it must have some solid ground. Also, Otto Kuase was born in the German city of Hamburg, so it would only make sense for him to name it a hamburger. One example of Germans naming foods after cities in their homeland is the famous Berliner, which is a jelly donut. It is also thought that the hamburger was brought to America by German immigrants. Fletcher Davis is another person that people think created the hamburger. In this story, Davis made the hamburger in his luncheonette in a small town in Texas, and then began serving it to the general public at the 1904 World’s Fair. Many of the inventions we have today are from the 1904 World’s Fair, and that could very well include burgers. However, the case for

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Fletcher Davis creating the hamburger has no evidence outside of speculation, making this theory probably the least supported of them all. The third suspect for who created the burger is actually two brothers. Charlie and Frank Menches supposedly created the burger after they ran out of sausages at their sausage stand at the 1885 State Fair. They improvised with a grilled ground beef sandwich, and when fair attendees asked what the food was called, they named it after the town holding the fair—Hamburg, New York. The timing of the Menches Brothers story is impeccable, but just like Fletcher Davis’ claim this argument is only seen as speculation, with no solid facts. Also, the Menches brothers also claimed to have invented the waffle cone, which does not help their credibility about inventing the hamburger. Louis Lassen is another person many back as the creator of the hamburger, and he is backed by many trusted and respected sources such as Food and Wine Magazine and the Library of Congress. In 1900, customers asked Lassen to make them something quick and delicious at his lunch counter. Lassen put a steak in a sandwich and covered the steak with cheese. There are other disputes about who made the hamburger, but only Louis Lassen and Otto Kuase have solid factual evidence. But who knows? Enough with that history jibber jabber blah blah blah. Now let’s talk about the actual food and why I like it. I like burgers for the same reason that I like any other food: they taste good. But with burgers, they are not just tasty . . . THEY ARE SPECTACULAR. It is special to me because it is so delicious you might KILL for it. The melted cheese and then the nice fat ground beef patty with the BACON on top. Oh so delicious. I have eaten many burgers in my life. Actually, on Sunday night I ate a delicious burger, but that is off-topic.

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What I want to talk about next is a nice burger memory. It is a very cold night in upstate New York. I was coming back from a trip to Vermont, and returned to New York State on a ferry across Lake Champlain. I was very hungry, and I was craving a nice juicy burger. So we drove on a quest to find a delicious burger place. On the trip, we almost hit a family of deer with our car, and we also stopped to say hello to some very cute sheep. I wanted to throw a snowball at the sheep, but Dad said no. We finally stopped at a place in a very dark town where you could see nothing. I had high hopes for it and so did my dad. The food was delicious, as it should be after we had been starving. Overall, it was a very nice trip and will definitely stay in my memories. Though I have had better burger memories, this one was the first to come to mind, probably because it was the most recent. I think the conclusion we can come to from this essay is that burgers are delicious, burgers have great history and most of all . . . WHERE IS MY BURGER?!