Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 12, 1993 TAG: 9309120288
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO\Book page editor
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Jeffrey Tennyson's labor of love is a tribute to the carnivore's favorite dish.
Thick, juicy, four-napkin, medium rare burgers are out of fashion in these health-conscious times, but they have a rich history that Tennyson outlines in a readable text. He traces the dish back to its possible roots in Steak Tartare, through a version created in Germany as Hamburg Style Steak, to its first recorded appearance as Hamburg Steak on the 1834 menu of Delmonico's restaurant in New York. Today's hamburger sandwich evolved as inexpensive food for laborers in short order restaurants, lunchcarts and diners.
Several people - among them Wisconsin's Carlie Nagreen, "Old Dave" Davis of east Texas, Louis Lassen of Connecticut and Frank Menches of Ohio - claim to have "invented" the hamburger, so any "single-origin" theory will be in dispute. About all that can be said for sure is that the hamburger, as we know it, is America's contribution to global gastronomy.
Much of the text is a popular history of the American retail food industry. That material is available from other sources but but Tennyson tells the story in such an accessible and well-illustrated manner that the book will be popular with kids. Hundreds of photographs and ads from the 1950s and `60s are a treat for those of us who grew up with drive-ins, the various incarnations of the Big Boy and White Castle "belly bombers."
The book is also a font of trivia. The Burger King chain actually began as Insta-Burger-King. The first Ronald McDonald, appeared in 1963. He was played by TV weatherman Willard Scott.
"Hamburger Heaven" is so good it'll make you hungry. Don't read it before lunch if you're trying to keep that cholesterol count down. But, hey, you can always have steamed white fish and tofu for dinner, right?
by CNB