Burger History

The origin of the hamburger, like that of most peasant food, is not easy to track. It's been linked to invading Mongols carrying raw meat under their saddles as they rode long distances, thus tenderizing it. It's said that tenderized beef spread from there to Russia, and eventually Germany (Hamburg, as you may have guessed). But the modern burger is better known as an American food, and it's said to have been popularized in the 18th century in New York cafés, where it was served to attract sailors who'd spent time in one of Germany's popular ports, including (right again!) Hamburg.

The first burger appeared on US restaurant menus as early as the 1820s, but the Library of Congress attributes the first American Hamburger to a Connecticut restaurant called Louis' Lunch (in 1895). The burger likely took a major dip in popularity with the 1906 release of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which unsurprisingly turned a lot of people off to chopped meat. It took another hit after WWI due to anti-German sentiment (when it was temporarily named "Salisbury Steak") but was revitalized by White Castle, which marketed the tiny burgers known as sliders in the 1920s. McDonald's got into the game in the 1940s, industrialized the process of cooking and serving them, and the rest, as they say, is juicy, beefy, history.