History of the hamburger

Originally just a ground beef patty, as it is still interpreted in multiple languages, and the name "hamburger" may be a reference to ground beef sold in Hamburg; evidence also suggests that the United States was the first country to create the "hamburger" as it is known today where two slices of bread and a ground beef patty were combined into a "hamburger sandwich" and sold as such. Shortly after this combination, the hamburger quickly included all of its currently typically characteristic trimmings, including onions, lettuce, and sliced pickles.

There is still some controversy over the origin of the hamburger – mainly because its two basic ingredients, bread and beef, have been prepared and consumed separately for many years in many countries before their combination. However, after various controversies in the 20th century, including a nutritional controversy in the late 1990s, the burger is now readily identified with the United States, and a particular style of cuisine, namely fast food. Along with fried chicken and apple pie, the hamburger has become a culinary icon in the United States.

The hamburger's international popularity is the result of the larger globalization of food that also includes the rise in global popularity of other national dishes, including the Italian pizza, Chinese fried rice and Japanese sushi. The hamburger has spread from continent to continent, perhaps because it matches familiar elements in different culinary cultures. This global culinary culture has been produced, in part, by the concept of selling processed food, first launched in the 1920s by the White Castle restaurant chain and its founder Edgar Waldo "Billy" Ingram and then refined by McDonald's in the 1940s This global expansion provides economic points of comparison like the Big Mac Index, by which one can compare the purchasing power of different countries where the Big Mac hamburger is sold.