A Most Famous Sandwich

I bet you had one of these within the last month. Maybe you bought one from your favourite take-away joint; maybe you made one yourself or maybe you visited a restaurant, but the fact is, I am willing to bet good money that you ate one of these not too long ago.

I am of course talking about one of the modern, globalised world’s most iconic foods: The hamburger.

If the definition of a sandwich is anything that consists of two slices of bread with a filling in between, the hamburger is a sandwich. One in which, traditionally, the bread takes the shape of a bun (with or without seeds), and the filling is primarily a patty of seasoned ground meat (mostly beef), onions, lettuce, tomato slices and some pickles (usually cucumbers).

The modern hamburger probably owes its existence to the demand for ever-more convenience, to the fact the people have less time to cook and eat, and to the fact that we eat on the run; food in the one hand, electronic notebook and tablet in the other.

Today, the hamburger is firmly entrenched in the category known as fast food. Unfortunately, it is a category of food in which “anything goes” and as a result of unscrupulous vendors, hamburgers have acquired a bad and unhealthy reputation.

To the question of precisely where the hamburger comes from, the best answer is most likely: It all depends on whom you ask.

Humans have been consuming ground or finely chopped or pounded meat for a very long time. As far back as the 1200s, the Mongolian horsemen plundering through Asia kept raw meat under their saddles as a method of tenderising the meat. In 1747, Hannah Glasse’s English cookbook ‘The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy’ appears in print with a recipe for ‘Hamburg Sausage’. It contains suet, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, garlic, vinegar, red wine and rum and was smoked for a week in the chimney.

In 1802, the Oxford English Dictionary published its first definition of a Hamburger steak “… [a] hard slab of salted, minced beef, often slightly smoked, mixed with onions and bread crumbs”. Meat grinders started appearing around the 1830s.

During the 1940s, German emigrants travelling to the USA on the Hamburg-American line ate minced, salted beefsteak, known as Hamburg steak, and it is likely that this dish is the immediate forerunner of the contemporary hamburger. In 1873, the first printed menu in the USA – that of Delmonico’s in NYC – listed the Hamburg steak as a dish. It cost 10 cents.

In 1885, brothers Frank and Charles Menches served ground beef sandwiches at a fair in the town of Hamburg, New York. Afterward they claimed to be the inventors of the hamburger. Later that year, 15-year-old Charlie Nagreen made a similar claim after serving a similar sandwich at a fair in Wisconsin.

According to the Library of Congress, the first hamburger sold in the USA was sold by Louis Lassen of Louis’ Lunch in New Haven. The year was 1900.

Walter Anderson, who founded the world’s first hamburger chain White Castle, in 1921 designed the hamburger bun. The first cheeseburger appeared in Los Angeles in 1928. The MacDonald’s burger franchise started in a refurbished BBQ restaurant during the 1940s. In 1948, the first drive-through burger restaurant saw the light of day.

In 2013, Maastricht University physiologist Mark Post introduced the ‘in vitro burger’, made from synthetic meat grown in a laboratory from cow stem cells. This test-tube burger was also the world’s most expensive burger at a whopping US$385 000

(N$5 211 431)!

From this synoptic history, it should be clear that the hamburger is no ordinary sandwich. It inspired world food empires and extremely high-tech futuristic endeavours. It is no longer just two slices of bread, a ground meat filling, onions and pickles.

I like a really good burger as much as the next person. But I struggle to find really good burgers in town. Some of the common problems I encounter include:

Stale buns. When the bread starts behaving like biscuits, all crumbly and stale, it is game over. Enough said.

Limp salad cooked by adding a hot patty from the grill onto the lettuce. There should be a protective layer of something between the hot meat and the salad component. The purpose of adding salad to the burger is to provide something fresh with a crunch, and when you cook the delicate salad with a hot patty, you defy its very purpose.

Too many dressings that kill the taste of the meat. In my view, a well-cooked burger does not need ketchup or mayonnaise or any other extra sauces. The only sauce a good burger needs is the juice of the meat.

Under- or overseasoned meat. ‘Too little’ is as bad as ‘too much’.

Overworked patties. When you work the seasoning into the meat, take care not too compress the meat too much. Overworked patties are dense and rubbery. Burger meat should hold its shape, not as a result of forceful coercion, but rather as a result of a proper binding agent such as salt, and some time to allow the protein bonds to strengthen. Yes, you may use eggs and bread crumbs and the like, but by salting the meat, shaping it and allowing it sufficient time to rest, you get the job done just as well.

Overcooking the meat. Overcooking the meat adds to the rubbery texture of patties that is so common. You should eat your burger with the same degree of doneness as your steak: Medium or medium rare.

Dubious quality meat: The problem is, when your meat is of low quality, you would not be able to eat your burgers medium or medium rare. With minced meat, many take inappropriate shortcuts knowing that fillers would be hard to spot.

My perfect burger is this one: Double cheese and coffee. Often when cheese is added to the burger, it is slapped on top of the patty and allowed to melt. That means that a lot of cheese ends up on the plate instead of on the burger. So I embed a small disk of cheese in the centre of my burger. When this melts, it cannot go anywhere. It also ensures the burger remains juicy.

To season the meat, I have developed spice rubs that could be used for any meat or poultry. I always keep a few containers of these ready for any meat-related emergency. Of late, I have started to use coffee in some of the mixes and I do believe it makes a significant difference. Try it, you will be pleasantly surprised, and if you do not want to make your own, supermarkets sell pre-made coffee-based spice rubs.

Cook your burger well, and you will never want to eat one in a mall again. I promise.

Coffee Burger

Ingredients

• 750 grams minced beef

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