Ep.3: Birth of the Hamburger

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Episode Agenda w/Time Stamps:

• 00:22 - Banter: birding, Money Heist on Netflix, Angel Has Fallen movie series, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, gaming graphics and the next console generation 
• 06:40 - Academic Deep Dive: History of the Hamburger

Credits:

• Cover Art Photo: Mosby Lake - follow this dog on instagram at regular_mo.
• Cover Art Font: Paper Cuts 2 by Empire of Dust (Daniel Werneck) is Public Domain.
• Intro Music: Shortened version of “Sweat Time” by Loyalty Freak Music is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License.
• Outro Music: Shortened version of “Alethia” by Nihilore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Transcript

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Ep 3 - Yondercast: Birth of the Hamburger

 Ian: [00:00:03] hello everyone, and welcome to Yondercast, the show where we do our best to answer your questions.

My name is Ian Lake, and this week I'm joined by my good friend Patrick Leitch.  And my friend, my nemesis, my fremesis Josh Baltzell. Guys, it's good to see you. How you been?

Patrick: [00:00:24] I'm doing well. 

I've seen some new birds at my bird feeder. I know this is completely off topic, but obviously we pick up some new skills and some new interests when we're in quarantine, and I've loved birding a little bit before that, but I saw an Evening Grosbeak. It was elusive for the last couple of weeks, and it just recently sat at my feeder, and it's a really beautiful bird. I don't know if you have a second, but you should Google an Evening Grosbeak look for one that has orange and white spots on the wings. It's got like a black head and a little black on the wing. It's a really pretty bird. 

Ian: [00:01:02] A nighttime ugly mouth. Is that what you called it?

Patrick: [00:01:05] Pretty much, yeah.

Evening Grosbeak. Gross as in large beak as in...beak  

Ian: [00:01:16] all right. I'll keep my eye out for that one. You have sent us a couple of pictures of birds that you've seen in your backyard. I always enjoy those. Maybe you can capture the evening grosbeak

Patrick: [00:01:26] Yeah. I've got a few photos. I'll send them here in a little bit.

Ian: [00:01:29] please do.

I haven't been doing anything nearly that interesting or outdoorsy other than. working on the podcast and working on teaching and all that kind of stuff. I have been watching a little bit of TV. My wife and I got into this series on Netflix called Money Heist. Have you guys watched that one?

Josh: [00:01:47] No.

Patrick: [00:01:48] I have not.

Ian: [00:01:48] It's really good. It's a Spanish show like from Spain and. In my opinion, the only way to watch it is actually in Spanish with English subtitles, because if you watch the dubbed version, the American overdubbing just is a little awkward. But if you can get used to the subtitles, it's a really good show.

It's about a bank heist and it's extremely suspenseful. It's one of those shows where you get to the end of every episode and you're like, I've just got to watch the next episode because I just, I have to know what's going to happen.

Patrick: [00:02:22] I

Josh: [00:02:22] I can't do that. That stresses me out. All of those action movies, I can't watch them because then I end up standing up in front of the TV and just shaking. I finally watched the Angel has Fallen series, like the Olympus has Fallen and London has Fallen and my heart can't handle that stuff.

Patrick: [00:02:41] I haven't seen any of those. They good?

Josh: [00:02:43] they're good, but I just, 

Ian: [00:02:44] They just can't stay upright.

Josh: [00:02:46] Yes 

Ian: [00:02:48] At some point, everybody's on the ground.  Sorry.

Josh: [00:02:52] Just everybody lie down. Yeah. Yesterday I played, 12 hours of Assassin's Creed Odyssey because I had been avoiding the game and I finally decided to play. I don't think I left my bed the whole day. It was bad. have you ever gotten to the point where you can smell yourself?

Patrick: [00:03:15] Like right now.

Josh: [00:03:17] Like right now. Everybody that's listening is like, yes, right now.

Patrick: [00:03:21] Yeah, I've definitely been at that point for sure. Isn't there a new one coming out?

Josh: [00:03:27] Valhalla.

Patrick: [00:03:28] Good. Okay. I've never played an Assassin's Creed game and that looks awesome.

Josh: [00:03:33] That's why I'm playing this one is because I wanted to understand at least the premise of the game.

Ian: [00:03:37] See, I played like all of the Assassin's Creed for a little while and there, there was too many of them. Like I played one and two and revolution or rebellion or something like that. And then I played three and then. I swear I've played like five Assassin's creed games and I was just kinda like, I think I need to be done with this formula.

But I have to admit that Odyssey is really intriguing 

Josh: [00:04:00] I love the story, but what got me is that everybody kept saying it's historically accurate. It's so cool. And then I pick up the game and it's like, we're going to use your genetics to time travel. And I was like, okay, sure.

Patrick: [00:04:14] Perfectly accurate.

Ian: [00:04:15] The Valhalla one does look pretty sweet. Oh, they haven't shown any like gameplay or anything like that, but the trailer looks pretty sweet.

Patrick: [00:04:25] Mostly follow suit sometimes. Right.

Josh: [00:04:28] This is why you never trust trailers because it looks like this amazing game, and then you get a potato.

Ian: [00:04:36] I've never understood how it's like legal to promote a video game with a trailer that isn't anything like what the video game looks like. There's nothing from the video game in the trailer. It's a completely separate animation. I don't understand how that is the standard

Josh: [00:04:55] I wish that I could make fun of them, but I fall for every time, every single time.

Ian: [00:05:00] everybody does.

Patrick: [00:05:02] I don't know if you guys saw that new PlayStation 5 video that came out  it looks incredible.  the things they can do now and the technology they have in terms of lighting and textures just literally blows my mind.

But I'm afraid, like now I'm all hyped up for a PlayStation five right?  And then all of a sudden you play the game and it looks like, like Josh said, a potato

Josh: [00:05:22] At this point, I'm kind of like, if a game tries to tell me that their graphics are incredible, I'll refuse to play the game because I am so over graphics. I, some of the best games that I've ever played have the worst graphics. And so I'm like, please just stop. Just stop.

Patrick: [00:05:39] We grew up on bad graphics.

Josh: [00:05:41] Exactly. I mean, they make this like game that you can beat in an hour and they say the graphics are incredible because they spent three years just trying to make it look real and like, I don't want to see real. I want, I want something good.

Ian: [00:05:55] I'm kind of a graphic snob, I think. 

Josh: [00:05:58] Ooh.

Ian: [00:05:59] Not that I spend a lot of money to try and get that, you know, I don't have the, PlayStation for like pro, is that what it's called? I just have like a standard PlayStation four but I definitely like my games to look good and if it's not going to look good, it's got to have  some pretty unique style that's going to make up for that.

Patrick: [00:06:17] I would have gone with that. Like, do you favor story functionality or graphics? Like which one would override the most? So the story would have to be there. It could have the best graphics in the world, the best gameplay in the world. But if the story's like the worst you've ever seen, it's a dead.

Ian: [00:06:17] I mean, if there's literally no story, if there's no reason to play it. It'd probably be like, Whoa, this is awesome. For like an hour. And then I'd be like, I don't have no reason to come back. There was no story.

Josh: [00:06:17] Meanwhile, Minecraft is nothing but block pixels and has no story whatsoever, and it's the most popular game in the world.

Ian: [00:06:25] You know what game looks amazing and lets you do whatever you want. Animal Crossing New Horizons

Josh: [00:06:32] my gosh.

Ian: [00:06:34] Turnips!

Patrick: [00:06:36] Get turniped.  

Ian: [00:06:40] Well, guys, should we get to our big question of the day?

Josh: [00:06:42] Yeah, let's do it.

Ian: [00:06:43] All right. So today we are answering a question from our listener Kieran who asks us, "What is the history of the hamburger?" Kind of a different question than we've answered in the past. And Patrick, you've taken lead on researching this, so go ahead and get into it.

Patrick: [00:07:03] Alrighty. Well, this is going to make me really hungry  but I guess we got to do it anyway. So question  What do you consider your perfect hamburger, and if you've had it, where did you get it at?

Josh: [00:07:17] Well, I grew up in Newberg. I don't know if you guys have ever been there, but there's this little burger place called Gem 100 . It is like the classic 1940s 1950s diner style and their burgers are absolutely incredible. I don't know. I'm sure it's just nostalgia glasses or something, but they're so good. I'm not even sure what it is about it. They like use red onions and they like toast the buns. I think that that's super important is that you have to toast the bun.

Ian: [00:07:46] You know, I think for me. The best burger that I've ever had is probably at some sort of gourmet brewery, or you know, somewhere where I paid like $15 for a burger. but to me, what I'm always going for with the burger is your classic Just really, really expertly done basic burger, you know? 

Josh: [00:08:09] McDonald's double cheeseburger. Exactly.

Ian: [00:08:13] I don't know about McDonald's, I don't know about McDonald's, but lately I've been a big five guys fan.

Josh: [00:08:19] Oh my God, yes.

Ian: [00:08:21] like to a food critic, a five guys burger is not obviously the best burger in the world, but like, it kind of just delivers that burger essence that I'm looking for.

You know what I mean?

Josh: [00:08:32] The only thing that should never go on a burger is a fried egg. That's my opinion and I know that it is not held by people, but it's awful.

Ian: [00:08:40] I pretty sure the last time I saw Patrick eat a burger, it had an egg on it. I don't know how he's going to feel about that.

Patrick: [00:08:46] I'm pretty sure I haven't had a burger in the last like 10 years without an egg on it.

Josh: [00:08:50] See there are people that live and die by the fried egg on a burger, but I no it's gross. It's wet. No.

Ian: [00:08:59] Okay.

Patrick: [00:08:59] See that's the difference. I think though, like if you get a bad fried egg, that can definitely ruin your burger.

Josh: [00:09:06] I'm going to be a hypocrite. I've, I've never even tried it before. I'm, I'm so bad.

Patrick: [00:09:11] How, so if, this is kind of a side question, but how do you, like if you were to order eggs only eggs, nothing else had a restaurant, how would you order them?

Josh: [00:09:21] It'd be fried.

Patrick: [00:09:23] So just like a fried egg. Like without on, not on a burger and on anything else. So you wouldn't scramble sunny side up, that sort of stuff. It just, how would you,

Josh: [00:09:31] I do the sunny side up and then I put it on hash Browns and chop it up.

Patrick: [00:09:35] Hmm. That sounds like you might like it on a burger

Josh: [00:09:39] No.

Patrick: [00:09:41] If you like the idea of having that egg taste with not necessarily eating an egg, but incorporated into the overall meal. I think that's kind of the idea of also putting on a burger where you're not necessarily having the egg itself, but it's some accessory taste or add some sort of, texture or functionality to it,

Josh: [00:10:03] we're going to have to have a special outing podcast where we go to a place and I'll try a burger with a fried egg on it.

Patrick: [00:10:09] Well, I have a couple of places that do it really well.  One place is actually called Grain and Gristle. I don't know if you guys have heard of that place. It's downtown in Northeast, like 14th and Prescott. It has or had at least the best burger I've ever had. no joke. Hands down. I had at one time and every ingredient was perfect, and I think this is kind of where Ian was going with it.

Like it has to literally be the perfect ingredient picked for that perfect sandwich like Josh, you were saying, a toasted bun, like they had a pretzel button that was perfectly toasted and buttered,  the Patty itself was not too thick.

It was actually like pretty wide, but also had a little bit of thickness to it. It was perfectly juicy, nice and medium. I don't know how you guys feel about that, but it was also seasoned. Correctly. Sometimes you can overseason it, and it was the right size for the bun.  I as a kid actually would just scream at the top of my lungs if the burger patty wasn't straight on the button, so maybe this is why I'm a little OCD about my burgers, but it's just the perfect size.

Same thing with the lettuce, right? They had, it's like the person went out and handpicked lettuce for my burger. It was perfectly the size of the bun and it was green and it was crisp.  it didn't hang over the sides. It was just right there and like tomatoes, like if you ever had a burger that had like three tomatoes on it and it just fell off the sides.

They had one tomato, one slice of tomato for the whole burger.  The bacon. Oh my gosh. it was perfectly crispy on the sides, but not too crispy, not too much fat and had that nice flavor.

Add a little bit of special sauce and of course, and I'm sure Josh is going to love this, the fried egg. 

Josh: [00:11:46] you sound like Marshall from How I Met Your Mother.

Patrick: [00:11:48] I've never seen it, but I'm going to take that as a compliment.

Josh: [00:11:52] The lettuce tickles the roof of your mouth.

Patrick: [00:11:55] let's just say that I've probably thought about this 8 million times in the last 48 hours and I just, my mouth starts watering cause I just want this burger again.

Ian: [00:12:04] I'm sorry, Patrick, I stepped out for a second. Can you just really quickly go back over what your perfect burger looks like?

Patrick: [00:12:11] okay. So it starts with,

Ian: [00:12:13] Please? No stop.

Well, Patrick, you are definitely the correct person to answer this question for us.

Patrick: [00:12:23] I love food.  I'm a huge proponent of making every single bite the best bite available. So if you're like eating a meal, you'll make sure that whatever your next bite is, is the next best bite. And so eventually what you're going to do is you're gonna be left with one last bite that you got to make sure it's still a good one, because you want to leave the place with a good taste in your mouth, right  metaphorically and literally.

So you just want to make sure that every bite is perfect. So by the time you get to the end, it's just the perfect meal.

Ian: [00:12:47] That's a lot of pressure.

That stresses me out.

Patrick: [00:12:52] It's okay. It's probably a little bit too much into my thought process of doing trivial things?

Well, I mean, the perfect burger, I guess might change for everyone. Right?  that ambiguity,  actually carries over into the birth of the burger. So the burger might have a birthplace, but do you guys actually know how old the burger is. 

Okay, 

Ian: [00:13:20] 1833.

Patrick: [00:13:22] Oh

Josh: [00:13:23] this is not the prices

right.

Patrick: [00:13:25] And one day. Well, I'm not going to shoot those responses down yet. there's actually around six different birth places that we're going to visit in the U S so I'm gonna take you guys to each individual one and talk a little bit about their story at the very end. I want you to try and maybe pick one of those places.

Now, as a science teacher, I started thinking as this convergent or maybe divergent evolution to this actually maybe diverged from a single spot. Now we have all these different places where burgers were formed. Was it convergent? Where actually these six different places all converged on the burger at once within the U.S. Well, I literally went on a culinary crusade to find out it was like 48 hours of just straight research.  just as a disclaimer, I may do some dad joke introductions of those places. So get your eye rolls going. I definitely won't hold the cheese on these guys.

So stop number one, a small place called Louie's Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut. Side note, can someone spell Connecticut for me?

Josh: [00:14:31] Okay. It's connect icut.

Patrick: [00:14:34] Perfect. I didn't know that as of yesterday. I will be the first to admit that. 

Josh: [00:14:40] I love that I got credit for not actually spelling it.

Ian: [00:14:44] does he get a point for that?

Patrick: [00:14:46] Oh, he gets two for that cause he get it phonetically too. I'm going to give him two.

So I'm going to set the scene here a little bit. You're walking down the street and you come across a small rugged brick building with these faded white windows, deep red shutters that are really almost heavy right. 

 legend has it that Louis or Louis, I'll say Louie was out of steak for a steak sandwich, and when the man was in a hurry, came by and wanted one, but he didn't have any, so he took some beef trimmings mashed them together into what we would call the modern Patty. He then grilled it, put it between two slices of toast and sent the man on his way. Enter the burger.

Well, New York magazine also said that the dish had no name until some rowdy sailors from get this Hamburg, which is Germany  named the meat on a bun after themselves. In fact, people from Hamburg, Germany called themselves hamburgers, or maybe other people just call them that.

Well, critics were miffed because technically they want to call it a sandwich because it was between bread and it was toasted. Is apparently what the critics said. So I did a little digging on their site. Apparently in their website, they claim they're recognized by the Liberty of Congress, which I think is a typo because yes, the Library of Congress actually recognizes them as the birthplace of the hamburger.

But no joke on Louie Lunch's website, it says Liberty of Congress, and they also called it a sandwich, which is what I found interesting.

Josh: [00:16:16] That seems like a weirdly obscure thing to put in the library of Congress.

Patrick: [00:16:21] so does that make it legit? You know, also, one small note, this is probably still one of the only places they cook the burgers on a vertical grill. So they actually take the two,  almost like the grills from your, I guess grill, traditional barbecue, shove them together around the burgers and then place it in a vertical stove, which you traditionally see them on a more barbecue style grill nowadays.

Like if you were at five guys, you'd see that whole almost skillet, if you will. You guys ready for the next birthplace?

Josh: [00:16:53] Yeah. Bring it on.

Patrick: [00:16:55] All right. See if you can get this one Suddenly Seymore. Okay. That was a really bad rendition of little shop of horrors. Seymour Wisconsin

Josh: [00:17:07] It's trying to figure out how that was related.

Patrick: [00:17:10] Seymour Wisconsin now.

Ian: [00:17:12] I can spell Wisconsin for three points.

Josh: [00:17:15] Oh, that's not worth three points.

Patrick: [00:17:17] Ian.  If you can also give a good rendition of either Suddenly Seymore or another song from little shop of horrors, I will award you three points.

Josh: [00:17:27] Is this only for Ian.

Patrick: [00:17:29] for right now, yes.

Ian: [00:17:30] I have never seen little shop of horrors.  I can still try and sing it. If you give me the name of the song again

Patrick: [00:17:37] there'll be more chance for points later.

Ian: [00:17:40] all I know is like "Feed me Seymore."

Patrick: [00:17:44] That's pretty good. 

Ian: [00:17:46] So I get four points.

Patrick: [00:17:48] I'll give you, I'll give you one. I'll give you one for reference. All right, so here we have blue skies, humid air, total population, 3.5 thousand and a massive statue of a dude in a white two point hat, like you'd see the employees at in and out wearing with an apron and a tie under it.

And sure enough on their website. It says "Home of the Hamburger", apparently according to the history books, a legend named Charlie Nagreen aKA Hamburger Charlie started as hamburger and onion career at the age of 15 right. Probably no older than some of our listeners right now. When he packed up his ox. Yes. His ox, because he wanted to sell these meatball sandwiches, which he called them at the Seymour fair, which now goes by the Outagamie Fair, because he thought people were walking around  could have a sandwich on the go.

Now, Charlie was from a hometown called Hortonville, which is a location where a lot of German immigrants lived. Once again, kind of foreshadowing for this later. Now, if you want to check out this festival, it seems really fun. It's at homeofthehamburger.org. They have a ketchup slip and slide.

Josh: [00:18:49] Oh, no.

Patrick: [00:18:51] so I don't know if your fear of ketchup is as good as the fear of fried egg, but that could be pretty fun.

Josh: [00:18:57] I have new fears. That may be the most horrifying thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

Patrick: [00:19:05] Now the picture was a little small, so I couldn't tell if it was legit ketchup, but I'm, I'm pretty convinced.

Ian: [00:19:13] someone has definitely hurt themselves, like cut themselves on the ketchup slip and slide and no one knew it.

Patrick: [00:19:22] okay.

Josh: [00:19:23] Okay. This is a combination of all of my fears. I am, I'm afraid of like blood in places that I can come into contact with it. I'm scared of food being on my body. This is no,

Patrick: [00:19:38] I think we have a trip in order. I think we need to go and have that happen.

Josh: [00:19:43] and we'd have to fly to get there and I hate airplanes.

Patrick: [00:19:47] Would you take fries down the slide with you?

 Ian: [00:19:52] no, you'd just wait at the bottom. Right. There's probably a giant pool of, of ketchup at the bottom and you can just watch everybody come down and and dunk your fries in it while you're watching.

It's like a show and a snack.

Patrick: [00:20:07] Perfect. Okay, well, let's go to the next spot. No. Like really? OK ... As in Oklahoma. Tulsa specifically.  The home of Oscar Weber Bilby, where the fam specifically claims it was served on the 4th of July, 1891 on a yeast bun.

More recently in 1995 the governor Frank Keating proclaimed that Tulsa, Oklahoma is the actual real birthplace of the hamburger because on that day in 1891  this is one of the first ones that was specifically served on a bun, which I think is the breaking point between a sandwich and a burger. As I'm sure you guys have gotten this question from time to time from maybe your students or others. I'm going to ask it again for our listeners. Is a hotdog a sandwich.

Josh: [00:20:59] No cause then why would we have the word hotdog?

Ian: [00:21:07] I think it is. I mean, I think that technically hot dog refers to the meat only but we just, you know, use the term hot dog to refer to a hot dog sandwich.

Josh: [00:21:18] But you would say in the kitchen. Could you hand me a hot dog bun cause then the hotdog bun is different. Cause if you just said hand me a bun. I mean there's a lot of things.

Ian: [00:21:32] Yeah. I mean I've always thought that this question was similar to the, Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square type of thing. 

Josh: [00:21:43] Uh.

Ian: [00:21:44] not every sandwich is a hot dog, but I mean, a hotdog is clearly a sandwich. It's stuff between bread, you know, it's a sandwich, but it also has another name.

Josh: [00:21:56] I don't like it.

Patrick: [00:21:57] Well, I looked up the place where this sandwich/burger, whatever it was, was at, and it's called Weber's root beer stan d . It says that Oscar Weber Bilby forged their grill which is about a three foot by four foot piece of iron by hand, and turned the grill into the one that created the first burger. The yeast bun, which I mentioned at the very beginning, actually came from the fact that you use yeast to carbonate his famous root beer.

The yeast was then used to make sourdough, which then turned into their famous bun. So that's place number three.

 Next this one's all about two people, the Menchie's. Now imagine you're in a town called bum bum bum... Hamburg.

Josh: [00:22:47] I totally thought that the name of the town was bumbumbum.

Patrick: [00:22:52] Gotcha. So Hamburg New York now, not Hamburg, Germany. This is where Frank and Charles Menchie supposedly originally came up with the idea. Now, originally from Ohio, Frank and Charles Menchie's were working at the Erie County fair, which at the time was the Buffalo County fair when they ran out of pork sausages and substitute it with beef, which they actually spice and seasons with coffee and Brown sugar, which to me actually sounds really tasty.

Well, this certainly sounds good on the surface. At the same time, Frank Menchie's obituary in the New York Times state that this actually happened in 1892 in Akron, Ohio.  Conflicting stories there. 

Josh: [00:23:31] Burger drama.

 Patrick: [00:23:33] so what do you think onto the next one 

Josh: [00:23:35] Bring it on.

Patrick: [00:23:36] Don't mess with this next birthplace? Texas. Imagine you're in a flat, humid, subtropical climate. It's also the black eyed pea capital of the world. No, not the Fergie type. And the home of founder of the Dallas Cowboys allegedly lived here. Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas claimed to have invented the hamburger.

According to legend in the 1880s he opened a lunch counter in the Athens area that served a burger that consisted of ground beef  and an onion between two slices of bread with a pickle on the side. That's the slice of bread thing. Again, though.

The real catch is in around 1904 when he and his wife kitty ran a sandwich shop at the St. Louis world's fair. In fact, there's actually picture evidence that was taken at the Old Dave's Hamburger Stand, that was sent to a historian who already claims that this, was where the burger was first made in the 1880s.

And what's more American than a cheeseburger in Texas? Where possibly the founder of the Cowboys lived. I mean, come on. 

Well, there's one last stop, and this involves a man named Otto. I'm going to probably really get this wrong, Kause? K. A. U. S. E. 

Now Imagine a castle and it's white. And it was grossly overrepresented in the Harold Kumar film.

Josh: [00:24:51] I was just going to say, I think I know where we're going,

Patrick: [00:24:54] Okay. Well legend says that in 1891 Kause created a dish that was a beef fried Patty and butter topped with Josh's favorite, a fried egg. So this is probably the leader in the clubhouse for me here.

Josh: [00:25:06] so now I know who to take out when they invent time travel.

Patrick: [00:25:11] So there really isn't much on Otto Kause, but there is plenty on the claims that he invented it. 

So White Castle is actually the first chain to commercially serve a hamburger when it opened in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. white signified cleanliness and purity, and the castle signified strength, stability, and permanence. In fact, their first building was modeled after the Chicago's water tower, which is gorgeous, by the way. You should Google it.  This also paved the way for future food chains like McDonald's, Wendy's In-N-out, and Burger King to open.

So now I have a question for you guys. Two of those companies were founded first, in fact, in the same year. So which of those two companies, McDonald's, Wendy's In-N-out and Burger King were founded first?

Josh: [00:25:58] Definitely McDonald's cause they were like, they were two brothers that like set up a little cart, weren't they?

Patrick: [00:26:04] I can not answer any questions.

Josh: [00:26:07] Oh,

Ian: [00:26:08] think, I think McDonald's and burger King.

Josh: [00:26:11] I can see burger King.

Patrick: [00:26:13] Well, you got the McDonald's. It is not burger King.

Josh: [00:26:17] It's Wendy's, isn't it?

Patrick: [00:26:18] Final answer.

Josh: [00:26:20] Well, there were only three choices weren't there?

Patrick: [00:26:22] McDonald's, Wendy's and In-N-Out.

Ian: [00:26:25] And now you can't be in and out to new.

Josh: [00:26:28] yeah. I think it's Wendy's.

Ian: [00:26:30] I think it's Wendy's too.

Patrick: [00:26:33] It is in and out.

Josh: [00:26:34] Oh my gosh. We're terrible at this.

Ian: [00:26:36] All right. I'll put myself down for two points and Josh for one point for that one.

Josh: [00:26:42] We had the same answer

Ian: [00:26:45] Yeah, but I said it better right.

Patrick: [00:26:48] Alright, so Josh, in what year were they incorporated? If you can get, this will double your points.

Josh: [00:26:55] incorporated?

Patrick: [00:26:57] Yes. Invented, built, started selling burgers commercially. In what year were McDonald's and In-N-Out? Same year.

Josh: [00:27:05] McDonald's was in the movie, The Outsiders, I think. And that movie I can't remember what year the book is like based in.

 I'm going to say, uh,  

Patrick: [00:27:21] 62 48

Josh: [00:27:27] Oh man.

Patrick: [00:27:28] And I believe 1948

Josh: [00:27:31] Oh, 1948

Patrick: [00:27:33] believe so. 

Josh: [00:27:34] Oh I went way back too far

Patrick: [00:27:35] so what came next? Burger King or Wendy's.

Josh: [00:27:39] Oh, burger King,

Patrick: [00:27:40] It was 

burger King in 54 Wendy's in 1969 so that was the most recent.

Josh: [00:27:47] do I get a point for that?

Patrick: [00:27:52] Well, while Anderson had been making hamburgers in Wichita since 1916 so well before those, and he believed that he was the first one creating true hamburgers nicknames included the gut bombs, sliders, Roach, burgers, and belly busters.

Ian: [00:28:06] Wow. They had some terrible people writing copy for them. Those are like very unappetizing names.

Patrick: [00:28:17] So do you guys have a vote on which one you think the most plausible? Birthplace is?

Josh: [00:28:22] Oklahoma.

  Ian: [00:28:25] Okay. So I've ruled some out because for me, I can't give Texas credit. number five is out for me. scenario one is out for me because you said it's in the Library of Congress and I don't know, it doesn't seem trustworthy. Can't trust the government.

So, you know. one, and, uh, the White Castle one. That sounds like a story that  white castle made up for good press, 

Josh: [00:28:50] A lot of these sound that way.

Ian: [00:28:52] yeah, kind of like Coca Cola, didn't exactly invent, but definitely perpetuated the image of Santa Claus that we think of today as like part of their advertisement campaigns back in the day.

So it seems like that one could be made up so it's really down to scenarios two and three for me.

Patrick: [00:29:09] ya.

Ian: [00:29:10] The 4th of July one with the bun, cause that actually sounds like a really good, burger  

Josh: [00:29:17] Oh,

Ian: [00:29:18] I think I'm going to go with uh wait, which one did you go with Josh?

Josh: [00:29:22] I think Tulsa, Oklahoma.

That was the one where they actually use the bun.

Ian: [00:29:27] Yeah. Yeah. That one did sound really good, but I can't go with the same one that Josh went with either, so that one's out. So I'm going to go with option two, Seymour Wisconsin, the meatball sandwich and the, and the ketchup slide. The ketchup blood slide.

Patrick: [00:29:41] well, I hate to tell you guys it's probably none of those. Well, I'm going to go into a little bit of another history lesson

Josh: [00:29:47] Wait. That's the payoff?

Like your answers are wrong. Here's some hidden 

Patrick: [00:29:54] information.

Ian: [00:29:54] There was no answer.

Patrick: [00:29:56] so there really is no answer. I could not find a definitive birthplace, but I did dig a little bit more historically, there's plenty of those who actually think this originated from Hamburg, Germany.

And some even think that the Mongolians think Genghis Khan may have had a hand in this. In fact, historians believe that the horsemen who were making minced beef, which is loosely a hamburger Patty as early as the 12th century, to get perspective here, Genghis Khan was born in about 1162 and ran into the early 13th century.

The minced beef meal evolved over time and made its way into Russia in the form of steak tar tar. This is a traditional Mongolian dish in which the preparers would cut up tougher meats like camel, or sometimes, unfortunately like horse and throw in a little raw egg to bind them. In fact, stories would say they'd cut up the meat and place it under their saddle before long rides to tenderize it before they ate it. This was a staple of the golden horde, which was an army led by Genghis Khan's descendants. Technically, his grandson Batu Khan that had a territory that spanned from most of Eastern Europe deep into Siberia. This massive army later introduced tar tar to Moscow, and if you've never had tar, tar is kind of just like finely chopped up completely raw meat and then they put some raw egg in it to kind of bind it.

It's really buttery. It's actually really good. There's some good places downtown that had some good tar tar, but if you're not into raw foods, definitely not your thing.

Josh: [00:31:26] At this point, I'm just picturing the years, like 410 BC and Aristotle is telling Socrates, do you want to go grab a burger? Socrates is like, no, we had burgers last week.

Patrick: [00:31:37] There is a new Bill and Ted's coming out that could probably include it.

Ian: [00:31:41] now that you've put that image in my brain, I'm imagining great philosophers debating the question. Is a hotdog, a sandwich

Patrick: [00:31:51] Oh, that's good. What is starting to come together though, because this is actually where it all meets in Hamburg, Germany in the late 19th century, where there's a huge population boom. As the city became a huge player in the Atlantic trade, making it the second largest European port, more specifically from Russia.

So there is actually a super early mention of a possible hamburger in a 1763 English cookbook by Hannah Glass, where she describes a Hamburg sausage, Hamburg, Germany there. But it is a minced beef seasoned like a burger traditionally would be.

All right. This was salted and smoked and was a dish perfect for long voyages to prevent from spoiling. This may have been when the Hamburg steak made its way across the Atlantic, specifically on what they call the Hamburg America line. Now, Josh, I know you speak German, so the Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien-Gesellschaft, H. A. P. A. G. For short.

Josh: [00:32:48] I honestly have no idea what you just said.

Patrick: [00:32:52] I think it's just a name, but did it sound German?

Josh: [00:32:55] Amerikanische that, that's the word that I got from that.

Patrick: [00:32:59] Perfect. Then I've succeeded. Well, that line, that, transport line brought in thousands of immigrants to the new world, and soon those patties, those Hamburg steaks are being served in possibly stands in New York. Right? 

 so I think it's possible that both forms of evolution, we're kind of working here, right?

So it may have originated from a single place and diverged and then maybe converse back together in the U S of these six different places. No, I don't actually have an answer. I literally scoured forever, but to me, that idea of Hamburg, Germany, where everything kind of came together and then came over to the U S through immigration and then kind of expanded again, just made an interesting appeal because.

Hamburgers and cheeseburgers. We think of oftentimes being the American meal. America was like the melting pot the bringing together of cultures and traditions and everything else, and maybe this truly was a culmination of a lot of different cultures and one single meal, even though we consider a cheeseburger American.

Well, that's all I really got on the hamburgers birth story. So let me pose another question to you guys. How do you guys feel about impossible burgers. What if it didn't come from a natural source? Well, technically it's still natural, but what if it was lab grown meat? Should we birth our own burgers?

Josh: [00:34:19] Only if you promise never to call it birth ever again. 

Ian: [00:34:23] just going to say, as long as we don't use the term birth,

Patrick: [00:34:27] we won't.

Ian: [00:34:29] I personally, I've had, impossible burgers actually. I was part of a food study, involving impossible burger patties, which was really interesting. I sat in a room and they handed me small bits of different patties through a small window, and I had to eat them and then evaluate them on a whole list of criteria. so I've had a few impossible burger patties and personally, I'm not for it. I am and I'm not. I think that if we can actually decrease our intake of beef and other meats that are extremely bad for the environment, I think that would be a huge step in environmental conservation.

But personally, I've never really been a fan of meat substitutes. If I'm not going to eat meat, I would prefer to just eat something else personally. So like a classic, you know, veggie burger or a bean burger or something like that. That would be my go to if I'm not going to eat a beef burger rather than something that is supposed to feel and taste like beef, but isn't, that's a personal outlook though.

Josh: [00:35:34] Yeah. I'd rather just have a good Tempe burger. I don't know. I think I'm on the same page. I haven't tried an impossible burger, but I've always wanted to. I hear they're actually good. I just have to go out and actually do it.

Patrick: [00:35:47] Yeah. I still struggle with that one. Right. Cause I agree. Like when you eat something, it should be that thing.  I always struggle with like, tofurkey.  I feel like if you're going to call it Turkey, it should be Turkey. If you're not, just call it tofu.

 I have no problem with eating tofu all day every day. It's really tasty. But I would rather eat like a tofu burger than a burger that's technically tofu, but we're calling it a burger. And I do agree with the whole cutting down on the processes that are cruel to animals, create more pollution for the environment, really bad for all of this stuff.

So I liked that aspect of the impossible burger, but at the same time. It's interesting that we can grow one. 

Josh: [00:36:26] Don't you mean birth.

 Patrick: [00:36:29] Birthger?

Josh: [00:36:31] Birthger. Oh no.

Ian: [00:36:33] Burgirth.

Josh: [00:36:34] Right. Birthger is the sound that it makes when you slide down a ketchup slip and slide.

Ian: [00:36:40] Uh.

Patrick: [00:36:41] EEMAGERD, SLURP AND SLURRED BURTHGERS. Yeah. So I, I feel bad. I don't really have an answer of where the hamburger came from. Germany. I think it's the best plausible idea. I think that kind of wraps everything up really nicely. I think the hamburger came from Hamberg.

Josh: [00:37:08] I like it.

Ian: [00:37:10] I think. It seems the most plausible to me too. I don't believe for a second  that nobody thought of grinding up meat and cooking it, you know, before Americans. And so, the idea that there's many examples throughout history of people doing something similar and it eventually leading to something, kind of like a burger that eventually got adapted and and I think that you're probably right, there's, there was probably multiple people who had similar ideas about it in different places. So I liked the whole convergent and divergent idea that you have.

Patrick: [00:37:44] Yeah. And now we just get to enjoy it. The tasty tastiness of a nice burger. 

Ian: [00:37:53] Well, that was delicious. I mean, interesting. I mean, historical. That was great, Patrick. I really really enjoyed that.

 Patrick: [00:38:03] I didn't realize there could be so much on the burger, I was expecting like me to look up one thing and then being like, poof, this is it. But no, there's just so much. 

Ian: [00:38:12] Well, I'm so glad that you, you dived into it. I wasn't sure either when we got that question I wasn't sure if it was going to be a two minute answer or whether there's going to be a lot more. And so that was really cool. Well, should we wrap up this episode of yonder cast?

  Patrick: [00:38:28] Wrap it up with some truffle fries. 

Ian: [00:38:33] That's it for this episode of Yondercast. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. Please subscribe to the show and review us on Apple podcasts if you have a moment. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, just fill out the survey you'll find linked in our show notes, and if you'd ever like to contact us, just email us at yondercast@gmail.com goodbye everybody. 

Josh: [00:38:53] Bye.