HISTORY & LEGEND OF BURGERS.

Tracing history back thousands of years, we learn that even the ancient Egyptians ate
ground meat, and down through the ages we also find that ground meat has been shaped
into patties and eaten all over the world under many different name.

In 1209 – 1121, as told by Genghis Khan (1167-1227), crowned the “emperor of all
emperors,” and his army of fierce Mongol horsemen, known as the “Golden Horde,”
conquered two thirds of the then known world. The Mongols were a fast-moving,
cavalry-based army that rode small sturdy ponies. They stayed in their saddles for long
period of time, sometimes days without ever dismounting. They had little opportunity to
stop and build a fire for their meal. The entire village would follow behind the army on
great wheeled carts they called “yurts,” leading huge herds of sheep, goats, oxen, and
horses. As the army needed food that could be carried on their mounts and eaten easily
with one hand while they rode, ground meat was the perfect choice. They would use
scrapings of lamb or mutton which were formed into flat patties. They softened the meat
by placing them under the saddles of their horses while riding into battle. When it was
time to eat, the meat would be eaten raw, having been tenderized by the saddle and the
back of the horse. In 1238, when Genghis Khan’s grandson, Khubilai Khan (1215-1294),
invaded Moscow, they naturally brought their unique dietary ground meat with them.
The Russians adopted it into their own cuisine with the name “Steak Tartare,” (Tartars
being their name for the Mongols). Over many years, Russian chefs adapted and
developed this dish and refining it with chopped onions and raw eggs.

Beginning in the fifteenth century, minced beef was a valued delicacy throughout Europe.
Hashed beef was made into sausage in several different regions of Europe. In 1600s –
Ships from the German port of Hamburg, Germany began calling on Russian port.
During this period the Russian steak tartare was brought back to Germany and called
“tartare steak.” And in the late eighteenth century, the largest ports in Europe were in
Germany. Sailors who had visited the ports of Hamburg, Germany and New York,
brought this food and term “Hamburg Steak” into popular usage. To attract German
sailors, eating stands along the New York city harbor offered “steak cooked in the
Hamburg style.” Immigrants to the United States from German-speaking countries
brought with them some of their favorite foods. One of them was Hamburg Steak. The
Germans simply flavored shredded low-grade beef with regional spices, and both cooked
and raw it became a standard meal among the poorer classes. In the seaport town of
Hamburg, it acquired the name Hamburg steak. Today, this hamburger patty is no longer
called Hamburg Steak in Germany but rather “Frikadelle,” “Frikandelle” or “Bulette,”
orginally Italian and French words. According to Theodora Fitzgibbon in her book The
Food of the Western World – An Encyclopedia of food from North American and Europe:
The originated on the German Hamburg-Amerika line boats, which brought emigrants to
America in the 1850s. There was at that time a famous Hamburg beef which was salted
and sometimes slightly smoked, and therefore ideal for keeping on a long sea voyage. As
it was hard, it was minced and sometimes stretched with soaked breadcrumbs and
chopped onion. It was popular with the Jewish emigrants, who continued to make
Hamburg steaks, as the patties were then called, with fresh meat when they settled in the
U.S.

History of American Hamburgers:

Only one of the claimants below served their hamburgers on a bun – Oscar Weber Bilby
in 1891. The rest served them as sandwiches between two slices of bread. Most of the
following stories on the history of the hamburgers were told after the fact and are based
on the recollections of family members. For many people, which story or legend you
believe probably depends on where you are from. You be the judge! The claims are as
follows:

1885 – Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin – At the age of 15, he 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. He was known to many as
“Hamburger Charlie.” He returned to sell hamburgers at the fair every year until his
death in 1951, and he would entertain people with guitar and mouth organ and his jingle:
Hamburgers, hamburgers, hamburgers hot; onions in the middle, pickle on top. Makes
your lips go flippity flop. The town of Seymour, Wisconsin is so certain about this claim
that they even have a Hamburger Hall of Fame that they built as a tribute to Charlie
Nagreen and the legacy he left behind. The town claims to be “Home of the Hamburger”
and holds an annual Burger Festival on the first Saturday of August each year. Events
include a ketchup slide, bun toss, and hamburger-eating contest, as well as the “world’s
largest hamburger parade.”

1885 – The family of Frank and Charles Menches from Akron, Ohio, claim the brothers
invented the hamburger while traveling in a 100-man traveling concession circuit at
events (fairs, race meetings, and farmers’ picnics) in the Midwest in the early 1880s.
During a stop at the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, New York, the brothers ran out of pork
for their hot sausage patty sandwiches. Because this happened on a particularly hot day,
the local butchers stop slaughtering pigs. The butcher suggested that they substitute beef
for the pork. The brothers ground up the beef, mixed it with some brown sugar, coffee,
and other spices and served it as a sandwich between two pieces of bread. They called
this sandwich the “hamburger” after Hamburg, New York where the fair was being held.
According to family legend, Frank didn’t really know what to call it, so he looked up and
saw the banner for the Hamburg fair and said, “This is the hamburger.” In Frank’s 1951
obituary in The Los Angeles Times, he is acknowledged him as the ”inventor” of the
hamburger.

Hamburg held its first Burgerfest in 1985 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of
the hamburger after organizers discovered a history book detailing the burger’s origins.

In 1991, Menches and his siblings stumbled across the original recipe among some old
papers their great-grandmother left behind. After selling their burgers at county fairs for
a few years, the family opened up the Menches Bros. Restaurant in Akron, Ohio. The
Menches family is still in the restaurant business and still serving hamburgers in Ohio.

1891 – The family of Oscar Weber Bilby claim the first-known hamburger on a bun was
served on Grandpa Oscar’s farm just west of Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1891. The family says
that Grandpa Oscar was the first to add the bun, but they concede that hamburger
sandwiches made with bread may predate Grandpa Oscar’s famous hamburger.

Michael Wallis, travel writer and reporter for Oklahoma Today magazine, did an
extensive search in 1995 for the true origins of the hamburger and determined that Oscar
Weber Bilby himself was the creator of the hamburger as we know it. According to
Wallis’s 1995 article, Welcome To Hamburger Heaven, in an interview with Harold
Bilby: The story has been passed down through the generations like a family Bible.
“Grandpa himself told me that it was in June of 1891 when he took up a chunk of iron
and made himself a big ol’ grill,” explains Harold. “Then the next month on the Fourth
of July he built a hickory wood fire underneath that grill, and when those coals were
glowing hot, he took some ground Angus meat and fired up a big batch of hamburgers.
When they were cooked all good and juicy, he put them on my Grandma Fanny’s
homemade yeast buns – the best buns in all the world, made from her own secret recipe.
He served those burgers on buns to neighbors and friends under a grove of pecan
trees . . . They couldn’t get enough, so Grandpa hosted another big feed. He did that
every Fourth of July, and sometimes as many as 125 people showed up.” Simple math
supports Harold Bilby’s contention that if his Grandpa served burgers on Grandma
Fanny’s buns in 1891, then the Bilbys eclipsed the St. Louis World’s Fair vendors by at
least thirteen years. That would make Oklahoma the cradle of the hamburger. “There’s
not even the trace of a doubt in my mind,” say Harold. “My grandpa invented the
hamburger on a bun right here in what became Oklahoma, and if anybody wants to say
different, then let them prove otherwise.”

In 1933, Oscar and his son, Leo, opened the family’s first hamburger stand in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, called Weber’s Superior Root Beer Stand. They still use the same grill used in
1891, with one minor variation, the wood stove has been converted to natural gas. In a
letter to me, Linda Stradley, dated July 31, 2004, Rick Bilby states that, His great-
grandfather, Oscar Weber Bilby invented the hamburger on July 4, 1891. He served
ground beef patties that were seared to perfection on a open flame from a hand-made
grill. His great-grandmother Fanny made her own home-made yeast hamburger buns to
put around the ground beef patties. They served this new sandwich along with their tasty
home-made rood beer which was also carbonated with yeast. People would come for all
over the county on July 4th each year to consume and enjoy these treats. And to that day,
they still cook our hamburger on his grandpa’s grill, which is now fired by natural gas.

BURGERS. https://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HamburgerHistory.htm