Comments & Curiosities:

“Cheeboorger, cheeboorger, Pepsi, Pepsi, cheeboorger – no fry, cheeps.” If you’re over 30, you know exactly what that means. It means John Belushi.

If you’re not, I can’t explain it to you. But however many years you own, in this corner of the universe, cheeseburger means In-N-Out and In-N-Out means cheeseburger. In-N-Out fans think about them, they dream about them, they crave them. If an In-N-Out junkie knew she or he had only a few hours to live, they would state their last wish calmly but firmly: “A Double-Double, fries, chocolate shake. Wait, two fries.” Forgive them. Sometimes being bad is really good. Does it have to be a cheeseburger? Of course not. You could order a hamburger, as long as you don’t mind being mocked, laughed at, whispered about and pointed at, and that’s all before you’ve left the drive-through.

Not long ago, the word was out that In-N-Out was moving into the former Kaplan’s deli on Harbor Boulevard and the 405. The news spread through Newport-Mesa like a prairie fire in a stiff wind. As In-N-Out’s go, this one was going to be giganormous – a juggernaut of sizzling grills and sputtering deep fryers, churning out Double-Doubles and fries like there was no cholesterol. Sadly, it was not to be. It appears the honeymoon between In-N-Out and the ex-Kaplan’s is over before it started. In-N-Out fans are crushed, bummed, more depressed than that “Where does depression hurt?” commercial, which is totally depressing. But here is the real issue – were there burgers before In-N-Out? Apparently, there were.

Historians and people who collect useless information tell us that ground meat has been around forever, which sounds unsanitary I think. You can find references to ground meat, lamb mostly, from ancient Rome and Greece and even earlier, which is really ancient. The most likely ancestor of our beloved burger is the Hamburg steak. Can you guess which German city that’s from? But it’s a long way from Hamburg to hamburger, at least hamburger as we know it.

The original Hamburg steak was shredded beef spiced and lightly smoked then shaped into a sturdy patty and eaten either grilled or uncooked, a la steak tartar. When the great wave of German immigrants arrived in the 1800s, they brought the little patty with them. Sidewalk stands near the docks in New York touted “Hamburg patties” to attract German sailors and immigrants. By the 1830s, restaurants were advertising “steak cooked in the Hamburg style.” There is an 1834 menu from Delmonico’s restaurant in New York City that lists a “hamburger steak” for 10 cents, and an 1871 menu for the Clipper restaurant in San Fernando that lists a “Hamburg Beefsteak,” also for 10 cents. You can even get muttonchops and pig’s feet in batter for 10 cents. Yum, pig’s feet in batter. Who’s hungry?

Beyond that, things get fuzzy, as they often do. About 136 people claim to have invented the all-American hamburger, which means 135 of them are lying. Do you know where Seymour, Wis. is? Neither do I. But Seymour-ites claim that a man named Charlie Nagreen invented the hamburger in 1885 at the Outagamie County Fair in Seymour, where Charlie was selling meatballs from a food stand at the ripe old age of 15. Everybody who tried Charlie’s meatballs loved them, which was good, but very few people tried them, which was not so good. Charlie was young but he wasn’t dumb and he quickly figured out nobody wants to walk around a county fair trying to eat a meatball. The next day, he flattened his meatballs, placed them between two slices of bread and called them “hamburgers.” Nagreen became known as “Hamburger Charlie” and sold his burgers at the fair every year until his death in 1951. “Nice story,” say the people in Akron, Ohio, “but it’s just a story.”

Akron-ites claim that, yes, it was a Charlie who invented the hamburger, but not Charlie Nagreen. They claim it was Charles Menches from Akron, who also worked the county fair circuit in the 1880’s along with his brother, Frank. Their specialty was sausage patty sandwiches, but one day, at the Erie County Fair in Hamburg, NY, they ran out of pork. I hate it when that happens. They raced to a local butcher who said he was also out of fresh pork but suggested they try ground beef instead. The brothers grilled the patties as if they were pork and served them as sandwiches. When a customer asked what they were called, the legend is that Frank looked at one of banners for the Hamburg fair and said, “A hamburger.” A strange footnote to both stories: Charles Nagreen (Wisconsin) and Charles Menches (Ohio) both died in 1951 (deceased.)

That’s all very touching say the residents of Tulsa, Okla., but those are nothing but tall tales for city slickers. Tulsans claim that the first certified, verified, bona fide hamburger, with modern-day bun, thank you so much – was served up by Oscar Weber Bilby at a Fourth of July picnic in 1891 that became an annual event. The Bilby family swears that the hamburger pedigree is theirs and theirs alone because not only did Oscar flip the first burger, but his wife, Fanny, made rounded homemade buns specifically for them, to which the people in Seymour and Akron said, “Oh please,” and the folks in New Haven, Conn. say, “You can’t be serious.” That’s because the New Haven crowd claims that the hamburger was in fact invented by one Louis Lassin in 1900 at his New Haven luncheonette, “Louis’ Lunch Wagon.”

By now you have figured out that we’d need at least three more days to get through all the pretenders to the burger crown. Who invented the hamburger? Pick any of the above or just make something up. No one will know. And to the In-N-Out fans, it’s back to 19th Street for you. And remember, there’s no sense having a Double-Double and not the fries. OK, and the shake. I won’t tell. Promise. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected].