I’m not asking about the origins of the word, though. Someone apparently picked the city “Hamburg” (Germany or NY, depending upon your account) for a meat-loafy type of dish. That’s not the question.
When did the concept of grinding up beef into a shape that would neatly fit between two pieces of bread, and calling that a “hamburger” come from. It’s just a little bit removed from the original “Hamburg steak.”
From http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/4195/words.htm
So it appears that the hamburger sandwich became the most common way to serve it, so they just dropped the “sandwich” bit from the name.
Is this what you mean, or do you mean why ground up beef into that shape at all? I guess the answer to that would be just that it’s easy to cook that way.
They still eat something called a frikadellen which is pretty much what we would call a hamburger patty, sans bun, in Germany. The word hamburger is mainly found in American style fast food restaurants. Memories of frikadellen may have been the inspiration for those upstate New Yorkers in the early 1900s, but that is pure conjecture on my part.
Sorry I don’t have a site as a cite, but I remember seeing a history show on Discovery/History/TLC a few years ago that mentioned the ancient Romans had a recipe for what we today would call a hamburger.
(I realize you’re looking for the specific point at which Hamburg Steak became Hamburger, but since I wrote this before realizing you didn’t want the full history of it I’m going to include everything anyway)
Most “food-historians” (including Charles Panati I think) trace the origin of the hamburger back to the Mongolians. Apparently, the Mongolians loved to eat raw steak. When they would go out on horseback, they would take strips of the raw meat and place it under the saddles of their horses to tenderize it and then mix it with (unpasteurized) milk, which eventually evolved into steak tartare.
I’m a little unclear on this, but apparently the Germans (or I guess Prussians at this point) picked up on this and by the mid-1800’s they had the tradition of “Hamburg Steak” which was a chopped filet that was served raw. In the 1880’s, German immigrants brought this recipe to America.
At this point, there is a disagreement. Some historians say that in 1885, a man in Wisconsin, Charlie Nagreen, invented the hamburger and introduced it at a county fair. Others say Frank Menches, from Ohio, invented the hamburger when he replaced pork meat with ground beef in his sausages.
Charles Panati says the first “true” hamburger appeared in 1904 at the World’s Fair in St. Louis, and this seems to be the general consensus. This hamburger had ground beef placed between two slices of bread and was called a “Hamburger.” Then, about 15 years later, Edgar Ingram and Walter Anderson began a business that would develop into White Castle, and would spread the hamburger all across America.
(also, since Hamburg Steak was originally made in Hamburg Germany, i think it comes from that and not NY)
So 99% of our fast food (hamburgers and pizzas) originated in the same place. 
As far as commercial sandwiches are concerned they originated at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
I think Dex proved that pizza as we know it is American.
This popped up on BBC2’s “What the Romans did for us” just last night. Recipe involved ground beef, corn kernels, the ubiquitous Roman fish sauce known as garum, and, um, some sort of binding agent, a liquid whose name I didn’t catch. (Any other BritDopers out there Adam Hart-Davis fans?) Put in frying pan, serve in a bun. Looked quite appetizing, unless you happen to know (as I do) how garum was made…
Garum is, I have been told, a direct ancestor to Worcestershire sauce, which IMO is a must on every civilised table.
I think it was John Burke’s ‘Connections’ that showed this. Not all Roman apartments had cooking areas, so people had to eat almost all of their meals at stands. I remember it as pinon nuts, ground meat, ???, cooked and slapped together between two pieces of bread…
-Tcat
errr…or was that James Burke?
Well, that’s 2000 years of progress for you… I think they treat the anchovies differently in Worcestershire sauce; or rather, I hope they do.
Tomcat: You’re right. That’s where I saw it. (I think it’s James Burke.)