As we noted in the last post, the Russian ships had brought the recipe of “Steak Tartare” to the port of Hamburg, home to an abundant amount of russian citizens and one of the largest European port of the time by the 17th century. The port also acted as a launchpad for a large amount of immigrant to the Americas in the early 19th century and hence for the european recipes including the hamburger.
New York City was the most common destination for ships traveling from Hamburg, and various restaurants in the city began offering the Hamburg-style steak in order to attract German sailors. The steak frequently appeared on the menu as an Hamburg-style American fillet, or even beefsteak à Hambourgeoise. This kind of fillet was beef minced by hand, lightly salted and often smoked, and usually served raw in a dish along with onions and bread crumbs.
The dish acted as a reminder of the home for the immigrants and was widely accepted and preferred. However, the Hamburg steak was gaining popularity amognst the Americans because of its ease of preparation and the comparative low cost by the end of the 19th century. This rising popularity is evident from its inclusion in some of the most popular cookbooks of the time that mention the Hamburg steak in detail.
As more and more people grew fond of it, the term hamburger steak was replaced by hamburger by 1930, which has in turn been now shortened to a “BURGER”. It is now commonly used as a suffix to create new words for the different variants of the hamburger, including cheeseburger, porkburger, baconburger, mooseburger etc.
So dear reader, whats your kind of burger?
Happy Eating 🙂