Etymology of Hamburger: Part 2.

December 25th, 1776. George Washington is leading a group of tired, hungry men who aren't feeling much like defending their new nation right now. They just want to be home with their families. These men are in bare feet in the snow, and most haven't eaten in a few days. Washington knows that if they don't eat soon they'll have no energy to fight and the war will be all but over. With no food left to ration to his troops Washington makes his famous quote, "the future of America hinges on food." Scouts have reported that the Hessian mercenaries across the river are enjoying a Christmas feast of Hamburgers from Germany. That is when Washington devised the plan to row across the Delaware river that night and take all the Hessian hamburgers for America. After the surprise attack worked and the colonial army ate their fill of hamburgers Washington famously said, "These United States will forever be indebted to the hamburger."

George Washington's bravery and patriotism formed the American values we still hold today of eating and taking by force what doesn't belong to us. This crucial event in the forming of the nation is what has given the hamburger the rightful title of "The American Food." So go out today to the nearest (insert whichever restaurant will pay to advertise first) and grab yourself a big American Hamburger and eat it like the founding father's would have wanted.

Etymology of Hamburger

So I was thinking about food the other day, and my mind began to ponder the greatness of the hamburger. I thought about how it has positioned itself to be the most American food there is. I mean people in America eat hamburgers way more than they eat apple pie. This of course begged the age old question of why we call it a 'ham'burger when it is made of beef? It doesn't make sense, especially when you consider that when the burger is made of turkey it's called a turkey burger, and when it's made of veggies it's called a veggieburger. I of course began to form theories like anyone would when faced with this puzzling word.

The first and most obvious theory I cooked up (HA!) was that the burger was once made of ham, and eventually a shift was made to beef, but the name of the burger stayed the same. This seemed a likely answer, the English language is weird after all (e.g. weird in the previous sentence and the "rule" that 'i' comes before 'e', except after 'c'.). After letting this theory simmer (HA!) a while I moved on to another that seemed a bit more plausible.

My second theory was that hamburgers came from the city of Hamburg, in Germany. Now I quickly wanted to abandon this idea because it's boring, but unfortunately Wikipedia confirmed that this is actually where the word comes from (Lame).

How can this be the case? Hamburgers immigrated to America just like everything else? There's nothing special about that. Hamburgers need an inspirational story about overcoming trials and creating something great from them, like as American as Jazz. That is when I decided to re-write the history of the hamburger to make it more American (read awesome) than the American (read immigrated) it already is. So look for my next blog post about the true story of America's greatest food.