Hamburgers
- This article is about the sandwich known as a hamburger. The term hamburger is also sometimes used as a synonym for ground beef.
A hamburger (or, less frequently, a hamburg) is a variant on a sandwich involving a patty of ground meat that is almost always beef. The meat can be grilled, fried, or broiled, and is generally served with various condiments inside a bun baked specially for this purpose.
Many fast food restaurants rely heavily on the hamburger sandwich for the bulk of their sales. The McDonald's chain of restaurants sells a burger called the Big Mac that is possibly the best known hamburger, and certainly the world's best selling. Another major fast-food chain, Burger King, sells a burger called the Whopper. These burgers are often served with french fries.
History and etymology
The name comes from the German city of Hamburg, something from Hamburg being "hamburger"; such ground beef patties originating or enjoying early popularity there. (Unlike the city it is derived from, the word hamburger is spelled as a common noun, with a lowercase letter "H".) Originally these ground beef patties were known as "Hamburger steak" (first mentioned in an American cookbook in 1891), and when this was put between bread or in a bun it was called a "Hamburger sandwich". By the mid 20th century both terms were commonly shortened to "hamburger" or simply "burger". The term burger has now become generic, and may refer to sandwiches that have fillings other than a beef patty.
Due to widely-prevalent anti-German sentiment during the First World War, hamburgers were renamed "salisbury steaks" for the duration; their popularity even after the war was severely depressed until the White Castle chain of restaurants created a business model featuring sales of large number of small hamburgers (sometimes called "sliders," "grease grenades," "gut bombs" and other dysphemisms) in the mid-1920s. The fast-food hamburger reached its modern popularity when Ray A. Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in the mid-1950s.
The hamburger's history is disputed. There is a description of something that is almost certainly similar in Roman texts. In Hamburg it was common to put a piece of roast pork into a roll in those days, called Rundstück warm.
Ingredients
The name hamburger may appear misleading, as some people think that the name refers to its main ingredient— which is not "ham"— when in actuality, as noted earlier in this article, the name refers to the town of Hamburg, Germany.
A commercial hamburger usually contains no ham or other pork product. It is made primarily of ground beef, although it may also contain spices and other ingredients. This is also known as a beef hamburger or a "beefburger". A beef hamburger that contains no other ingredients besides the beef itself is referred to as an "all beef hamburger" or "all beef patties".
Recent years have seen the increasing popularity of new types of "burgers" in which alternatives to ground beef are used as the primary ingredient. For example, a turkey burger uses ground turkey meat, a chicken burger uses ground chicken meat, a buffalo burger uses ground meat from a bison, and a veggie burger or tofu burger uses a meat substitute (such as tofu, TVP, seitan, or an assortment of vegetables, ground up and mashed into patties).
Serving style
Methods of serving hamburgers vary considerably.
- In American restaurants, burgers are traditionally offered "with everything" (or "all the way," "the works," or in some regions "dressed") -- which includes lettuce, tomato, onion, and often a pickle (or pickle relish) -- or "hold the onions" -- with lettuce and tomato and maybe pickle; cheese (usually American processed cheese, but often cheddar, Swiss, or bleu, either melted on the meat patty or crumbled on top) is generally an option and technically makes it a "cheeseburger" instead of a "hamburger." Condiments are usually offered separately ("on the side"), most commonly mustard and ketchup, although mayonnaise and other salad dressings are popular, as are salsa and other kinds of peppers. Heinz 57 sauce is popular among die-hard burger enthusiasts. Other popular toppings include bacon and guacamole, fried egg, feta cheese, sliced mushrooms, mushroom sauce, chili (with or without beans), slices of ham, tartar sauce, or slices of jalapeno peppers. Standard toppings on hamburgers can vary by geographical region, particularly at restaurants that are not national or regional franchises. In portions of the Carolinas, for instance, a hamburger "with everything" may be served with cheese, chili, onions, mustard, and cole slaw (usually a vinegar-heavy slaw with little or no mayonnaise.) Some restaurants, attempting to make a time-honored dish seem more novel, use foreign ingredients such as teriyaki sauce. A hamburger with two patties is a "double hamburger", while a hamburger with three patties is a "triple hamburger". Doubles and triples are often combined with cheese and occasionally with bacon as well, yielding a "double bacon cheeseburger" or a "triple bacon cheeseburger", or, alternatively, a "bacon double/triple cheeseburger."
- United Kingdom hamburger patties usually incorporate extra ingredients such as egg, onion, breadcrumbs and have more of a sausage-like taste.
- Australian and New Zealand hamburgers generally include tomato, lettuce, cheese, and meat (with BBQ or tomato sauce) as minimum, and can optionally include beetroot, onion, egg, bacon, and pineapple (aka "burger with the lot").
A patty melt is a sandwich consisting of a hamburger patty, sautéed onions and cheese between two sliced of
