Hamburger (ground beef in a bun)
Hamburguesa (carne picada en pan)
- Date
- c. 1900 · confidence low
- Place
- New Haven, Connecticut, United States
- Credited to
- Louis Lassen (disputed among other inventors)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A patty of ground meat, of German-American origin, served between two slices of bread. It became the emblem of fast food throughout the 20th century.
Claimants include Louis Lassen (New Haven, c. 1900), Charlie Nagreen (Seymour, 1885), the Menches brothers (Hamburg, NY, 1885), Fletcher Davis (Athens, Texas) and others. None of these priorities can be proved with contemporary documents; the Hamburg steak is earlier.
What it led to
- fast-food chains (White Castle 1921, McDonald's 1940)
- ground meat as a mass industrial product
- plant-based and cultured-meat variants