May is National Hamburger Month and to further honor this All-American sandwich, May 28 has been named as Hamburger Day.
The hamburgers were first created in Hamburg, German. Street vendors sold a beef patty covered in onions and spices. In the mid-1800s German immigrants brought this tasty dish called hamburger steak with them and it soon became a popular item in restaurants.
Once in the United States, the hamburger jumped from the plate to the bun. There are many contested stories as to who made the first hamburger. The Library of Congress credits Louis Lassen, owner of a lunch wagon in New Haven, Connecticut, for selling the first hamburger and steak sandwich in this country in 1895. This too is debated. It is known that the first burgers were served between two slices of bread plain or toasted. An Oklahoma farmer is given credit for serving a hamburger on a bun in 1891. But it was at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904 where the hamburger on a bun created a sensation. ...