Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Throughout my response I shall be citing Bill Bryson's Made in America: an Informal History of English in the United States. Although Hamburg, Germany, seems never to have had any dish like ground beef in patty form on a bun, Hamburg, New York, is one of the two towns that lay claim to being the origin of the hamburger, ca. 1885 (the other is Seymour, Wisconsin, to which I have been, and it is so unremarkable a town that it has one stoplight, and the Dairy Queen is the only place I saw that could sell you a hamburger — they have wonderful cheese curd, though). There was apparently something called a Hamburg steak as early as 1837 or so (at Delmonico's in Manhattan), but it had seemingly mutated to hamburger steak by 1889 (note: four years after the "creator"-towns claim to have invented the dish). But that Hamburg steak was not a sandwich; the actual "hamburger" as we know it appears to have many restaurants claiming original ownership. Hamburg, NY, and Seymour, WI, seem to be the only towns claiming to have originated it. It is certain that "White Castle" was the first restaurant to truly make the "hamburger" a popular item (and to pave the way for our McDonald's world, though the burgers from both places are inedible and should only be approached if wearing a HazMat suit). Perhaps, and this is my own thought, the people of Hamburg, NY, and other local areas kept the name of the town that claims to be the Garden of Eden of that most-wonderful American dish. Hamburg, NY, is near Lake Erie, but not so far from the Finger Lakes area that it couldn't have traveled that far. That's my theory anyway.