Outrageous claims from Texas I was shocked this morning to receive an email from a friend containing a link to an outrageous news story: "Texas, Connecticut Battle over Birthplace of Burger." "What is there to battle over?" I thought. Everyone knows that, in addition to being my birthplace (primary claim to fame), New Haven is home to Louis' Lunch, the birthplace of the Hamburger.

I will leave it to fellow blogger (and one of my childhood heroes, as he is CT's top weatherman and frequent predictor of school cancellations) Geoff Fox to give the lowdown on Louis':

The action at Louis' takes place behind the counter, where burgers are broiled vertically, over an open flame, in three cast iron grills. The grills themselves are ancient - actually dating from the 1890's!

You can have onions, cheese and tomato, but no ketchup! No French Fries either. At Louis' it's their way or no way, and that includes toast, not a bun.

There are two reasons Louis' is still around. First, it's the burger, of course. It is unbelievably tasty. Second, and more important, Louis' is an anachronism. In this Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Amazon.com world, Louis' operates without consultants and accountants and p.r. flacks. There aren't rounding errors or spoilage. Each individual burger counts.

Now, New Haven has been around since the 1600s, and by the late 1800s was significantly more developed than Texas. I doubt that, among the dusty, dirty nothingness that was Texas during this time, Texans were in a position to be thinking about making ground beef patties and serving them on bread.

I am sure this is all just an attempt to knock down what Geoff Fox points out is a great American landmark, an institution that has held its ground against the tide of Walmartization. The Texans are down, and they're desperately flailing for some sort of positive recognition. Well, they're not gonna find it here.

I call on the Connecticut congressional delegation to step in and preserve the place of Louis' at the center of the hamburger universe. (Yes, I know what will probably happen - all of the CT politicians will jump on board and then at the last minute, Lieberman will defect and claim that it is in the nation's best interest to name Texas as the originator of the burger, in the name of national security).

The more I think about it, maybe the hamburger has something in common with our great President Bush. What could that possibly be? Well, like Bush, the hamburger seems like it wants to pretend it was born in Texas, when really it was born in New Haven.

Oh, by the way, did you hear that Tex Mex cuisine originated in Hartford?

Labels: burgers

  ¶ 9:18 AM