CT vs Texas - who invented the hamburger?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

Now since I was born in and grew up in a suburb of NH I have eaten at Louis Lunch many times so I'm biased in this fight.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/oddities/story.html?id=af337bd8-532e-4d71-94f7-f6d14efe083a&k=73831

"NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) - A burger battle is brewing between a Texas state legislator and the owners of a New Haven restaurant who claim the hamburger was invented in Connecticut.
With the new session of the Texas legislature now underway, Republican state Representative Betty Brown has proposed a resolution declaring Athens, Texas, the original home of the hamburger.
Brown, an Athens resident, says that a long-ago resident of the town had a luncheonette in the late 1880s and sold the first burgers there.
Those claims are not sitting well with Ken Lassen Sr., 89, third-generation owner of Louis' Lunch, established in 1895. He says his grandfather came up with the first hamburger there."

[PVnRT]

1. Noel Gallagher

n/t

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. Um - yes

yes indeed

[TommyO]

3. Ronald?

[KurtNYC]

4. Next they can declare that Frankfurt was not the city where Frankfurters started

Hamburger: in Hamburg, Germany, meatscraps, similar to modern ground beef were served on a Brötchen,<2> a round bun-shaped piece of bread.

Edit (link) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

5. source?

[johnnie]

6. Meat and bread

That's one hell of an invention. It's a good thing Rep. Betty Brown is on the case though. :eyes:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. I take this very seriously

It's a matter of pride. Delicious carnivorous pride.

[johnnie]

9. I know, I know.. forgive me

It was disrespectful of me to try to make this issue sound so trivial.

[bigwillq]

8. CT baby!

Louie's Lunch all the way! :bounce:

[Anarcho-Socialist]

10. I remember watching a BBC historical documentary

called "What the Romans did for us" in which they illustrated how the Romans liked to eat beef patties in-between two slices of bread; a hamburger of sorts.

[slj0101]

11. Yes! I saw that too.

With Terry Jones. Fast food was big business in ancient Rome.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

12. they were incorrect

trust me

[Redbear]

13. As a Texan, I say give Connecticut its due

Texas can be proud that we invented the Worst. President. Ever. burger.

First you fry up some brains that have been soaked in alcohol and put it between 2 slices of whole-wheat failure. Add some complete lack of conscience and a side of lust for empire and that my friends is a recipe sure to increase Halliburton profits by 438%.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

14. Bush was born in New Haven. Same hospital I was born in even.

we win again!

Oh and don't forget the cocaine never forget the cocaine!

[hedgehog]

15. Ahem,

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Erie County Fair and Exposition, also known as "America's Fair", is a fair held in Hamburg, NY every August. It is the largest fair in New York, and the second largest county fair in the United States, often drawing over one million in attendance.

The first Erie County Fair was held in 1819, and was hosted by the Erie County Agricultural Society. The fair is currently the second longest operating fair in the United States.

It is also where the modern hamburger was invented, at the Erie County Fair, as its location (Hamburg), solves the riddle as to why there is no ham in hamburgers. However, this is disputed as a number of other claims have also been made as to the origin of the hamburger.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

16. Wikipedia eh?

I see

[hedgehog]

17. I figure a lot of people were eating those sandwiches, but:

Hamburg, NY
The claim of Hamburg, NY, also relies heavily on oral history written down long after the event. Two brothers, Charles and Frank Menches from Stark County, OH, were travelling a circuit of fairs, race meetings, and farmers' picnics in the early 1880s. They sold sandwiches using a gasoline stove to fry the meat. The popular sandwiches at these events were pork sausage, fried egg, fried liverwurst, fried mush and fried peas porridge. The brothers decided to focus on the pork sausage sandwich. In 1885 while selling at the Erie County, NY, fair, also known as the Hamburg Fair for the county seat, they ran out of pork sausage.

At this point the story gets a little confusing because two sources make different claims. Kunzog, who talked with Frank Menches about this in the 1920s, says that when they ran out of sausage they approached a Hamburg butcher, Andrew Klein, who operated a slaughter house and meat market. He was unable to furnish pork to them and, since the weather was very hot, he did not want to do any butchering for a small order. So he offered to chop up ten pounds of beef.

After forming patties and frying them they decided that a little brown sugar would bring out the flavor. The legend contends that the name was given for the town of Hamburg, NY, and had nothing to do with the penchant for the people of Hamburg to eat ground or finely chopped meat, as claimed in the Athens, TX, story.

A local historian, Joseph Streamer, writing an "Out of the Past" column in a local newspaper, The Sun, claimed that the brothers had gotten the meat from Stein's market, not Kleins, but in another column he noted that Stein had sold the market in 1874; at that time Franch Menches would have been only eleven years old. With the similarity of "Stein" and "Klein" it is easy to see how one could get confused but it sheds some doubt on the claim. Streamer wrote approximately 200 of the small pieces in the paper and in the one dealing with Stein's market no mention was made of the hamburger invention. Nor do any of the centennial, sesquicentennial or 175th anniversary volumes of Hamburg's history. The lack of mention of the invention of the hamburger in the "official" histories of some of these communities is consistent; all the evidence seems to come from interviews long after the event.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

18. Lalalalalalala - I can't hear you!

New Haven I tell you!