Oh yes, a disk of plain chopped meat with salt and pepper is genius! It’s great! Culinary genius, I say!
OK, so maybe dumbing down isn’t the best choice of words… It’s least common denominator capitalism and culinary heresy.
I am so drooling on my keyboard right now… I know what’s for dinner tonight.
I swear I posted to this thread already, but I can’t find my post so I guess not.
When we make burgers at my parents’ house, nothing- not salt, not pepper, nothing- goes into the meat. It’s just a thick round patty of deliciousness, formed by my mom but usually cooked- on the stove, not a grill- by me. Mom’s gets cooked just enough that the outside is seared; my brother and I go for medium-rare, and my dad’s is cooked not just well-done but overdone and left in the pan to cool and die even more. He likes it that way. Crazy Texan.
However, our meat is from cattle from my family’s farm, and it has a lot of flavor on its own. My mom might add a little hot sauce to her plate, especially if we’re eating hamburger steaks (with sauteed mushrooms and onions, French bread, and steamed spinach) instead of burgers on the bun; I salt the patty in either case. But the inside stays pure.
I think Jacques Pepin uses this method in Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, but I left that at home, not in my dorm, so I can’t check.
I didn’t even know that you could put stuff into hamburger patties until I was 10 or 11, and discovering it freaked me out. Stuff goes on the bun, not in the the burger!
(My “stuff” is usually a little ketchup, a little mustard, a little mayo, then the burger patty, then sliced tomato, onion, and dill pickle, with salt on the top of an onion or plain burger bun; sometimes we grill the onion, sometimes I use tartar sauce instead of the other sauces.)
When combined in the manner of an American hamburger, yes, it is culinary genius. Why did it takes us all the way until the 1900s to develop it? It may be self-evident now, but it certainly wasn’t then.
It seems clear to me that what is known as the frikadelle now is not exactly the same thing that a Hamburg steak was back then. Did you even bother reading any of my citations? The earliest US progenitor of the hamburger seems to be something called a Hamburg sausage and, for the millionth time, Hamburg steaks were made of minced beefsteak, onion, and nutmeg. Egg was sometimes used as a binder, and bread was sometimes used as a stretcher.
A hamburger IS American, so we can define hamburger as we wish. A frikadelle is not a hamburger. It’s a frikadelle.
nevermind
It was self evident then… self-evident that a plain piece of cooked chopped meat was without flavor and not a great culinary feat, nor revelation. That was chopped beef or beefsteak, not a hamburger.
A hamburger is NOT American. It’s a meatball from Hamburg, Germany. That we have raped the noble Hamburger by distorting and usurping it’s heritage is just part and parcel of American Cultural Imperialism. Kapitalistische Schwein! 
Let’s just agree to disagree, then. The hamburger, as it is known today throughout the world, is decidedly American. I am hardly a rah-rah American cheerleading jingoist, but let’s give credit where credit is due.
Josh Ozersky, author of “The Hamburger: A History” agrees:
Spiced minced/ground meat formed into a patty (or sausage) is nothing new. It’s not even particularly German. The hamburger, as we’ve known it for almost a hundred years, is American.
So y’all use American cheese? Kraft congealed and dyed fat slices? Yechh! Too…too…plebian.
The only kind of cheese in this house is Swiss or Gouda. And on a crispy french roll, not a WonderFunBun. Much more…continental. That’s it. Like Texas meets Paris by way of Amsterdam or Geneva.
OK, back to important matters. 
My default is American deli cheese (not the “cheese food product” stuff, but the mild cheddar variant.) Munster cheese is pretty yummy, too, and, if I’m feeling a little fancy, some Maytag blue is wonderful, but can be overpowering since I like my burgers on the thinner side.
Man, this thread is making me so hungry. I think it’s time to whip out the grill and make some Serbian pljeskavica or cevapcici (not in the mood for a normal burger today).
The purist responds: yep, sure do. Laugh if you must, but those Kraft slices melt in what I consider a proper fashion. Most “real” cheeses, I find, separate when they melt, which means a whole lot of nasty oil oozes its way out from the body of the cheese. And that’s just not deliciousness. On my own burger, I tend to put two slices, too; makes the top bun prone to sliding off, but it’s just so darn tasty.
As for the bread, I tend to be pretty easy, but I do like to toast my bun alongside the burgers on the grill for the last minute or so. Just enough to drive out moisture and give a little crispness, without blackening them. The wife doesn’t like the toasting, though, so hers gets left alone.
Then you must love Velveeta. So easy to use.
[Homer]Mmmm…Velveeeta…[/Homer]
I love meat.
For my hamburgers I use ground chuck, the fatty kind, usually 80/20 or 70/30 meat to fat mix. I don’t add anything else.
Then I make big-ass eight ounce burgers and cook them on my indoor kitchen grill. If guests want rolls and ketchup and stuff I have it on hand, but I eat them with just some No-Salt. Man, they are good.
Actually I’m having hamburgers tonight. I have two buddies who may be stopping by so we’ll have festive times as well as meat and sit on the deck and smoke cigarettes and gossip and then maybe have some more hamburgers.
I love meat.
Swiss is good on a burger, but a slice of nice sharp cheddar is the best!
Provolone or even smoked provolone are great burger scheeze. Buttery and mild nutty.
The Hamburger that you’ve known for almost 100 years is American.
And I feel obliged to inform you that it is a really big world. And there are traditions that supercede America’s by 1000’s of years.
Gee… You don’t say!? I’ve lived the majority of my adult life outside America, visited and eaten my way through a couple dozen countries on five continents, so I think I have some knowledge of the world.
And the hamburger the entire world has known is American. The frikadelle and its variants is not a hamburger, nor is known as a hamburger.
And the “Hamburgers” (I’m assuming you mean frikadelle) Germans have known came by way of Russia, and then, possibly the Tatars. So who do we give credit to? What the entire world calls a hamburger is an American innovation. Ask almost anyone in the world what a “hamburger” is, and I guarantee you they will describe the American hamburger. Even if you ask a resident of Hamburg. Yes, I’ve been to Hamburg (thrice) and have even eaten hamburgers there. What I got was not, I assure you, a frikadelle.
Food traditions go through various incarnations and are passed through countries. Minor differences in food preparation are enough to establish those dishes as creations of those countries. Pizza is Italian, but, let’s take deep dish for example, while obviously based on something like a pizza rustica or Italian bakery-style pizza, is not Italian. It’s American. Yugoslavian cevapcici are obviously related to Middle Eastern kebabs (even the name cevap/kebap), but cevapcici are decidedly Balkan. Greek gyros and Turkish doners are nearly identical, but each culture’s take on the dish make the dish their own. And the Mexican al pastor has obvious roots with the doner kebap as well, but nobody would accuse it of being a Turkish dish. It’s Mexican, but obviously inspired by the Lebanese population.
The American hamburger is the same. It may have been inspired by the Hamburg steak or something similar, but it’s American. Otherwise, if you want to say the Hamburger is German, why wouldn’t you go further back and say it’s Russian or Tartar?
Because, nobody knows what a Hamburger means, in America. Thanks to corporate and political revisonism. Most are ignorant of a Hamburgers origin. I would think attribution would come from even you. But no… you must be American and right instead. To deny history is America’s malady.
Wow. You are really being extremely insulting. Corporate and political revisionism? Huh? A “Hamburger” means a citizen of Hamburg. I don’t believe there has ever been a dish called a “hamburger” before America came up with the name initially as shorthand for “Hamburger steak.” I’ve provided you with cites, factual accounts, and statements from a food historian agreeing with my point, and you’ve given me nothing but condescension and vague accusations of American arrogance, which is a laughable accusation if you knew me personally.
Fine, the hamburger is a Tartar invention, then, if we’re going to play your game.
Which is known as a fasírt in Hungary, for those interested.
So tell me, pulykamell.
What do you think of the English Faggot to Hamburger theory?
Isn’t a Faggot an early burger?