Talk:Hamburger

Photo of NOT a Big Mac
Why does this page display a photo of a hamburger that is NOT a Big Mac with a caption calling it a Big Mac? A Big Mac has the cheese and pickles underneath the meat patty, but the photo on this page has both of those on top of the meat patty. Christopher Rath (talk) 15:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter, what if the rearranged it or its covered by the lettuce or even its not the same because it's from another place and not where you live. Do you understand? There are many reasons and it's just a burger and it wouldn't kill any one if it was arranged in another way🔃 SithembileK (talk) 05:24, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * FYI the user who original made this complaint did so when there was a different picture on the page, and he ended up replacing it with a photo of a genuine Big Mac that he took himself (see here ) Tobus (talk) 05:45, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 May 2023
It is suggested that the term "chicken burger" is only used in Australia and New Zealand, but it is also used a lot in Europe (at least in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Monaco, Germany and Sweden) where a sandwitch also is based on a sliced bread (loaf of bread or baguette for exemple, or french toast). Please change "In Australia and New Zealand, a piece of chicken breast on a bun is known as a chicken burger, which would generally not be considered to be a burger in the United States; Americans would generally call it a chicken sandwich, but in Australian English and New Zealand English a sandwich requires sliced bread (not a bun), so it would not be considered a sandwich." to "In multiple parts of the world (Europe, Oceania...) a piece of chicken breast or fried chicken tenders can replace the beef patty and is called a chicken burger (chicken sandwich in the USA)." TheCiramor (talk) 12:20, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. AnnaMankad (talk) 12:27, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I just edited my request for it to be more clear. TheCiramor (talk) 12:32, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting comment.svg Note: I find the current version to be much clearer. Actualcpscm (talk) 11:17, 1 June 2023 (UTC)


 * He has a point. I actually pay attention to that particular phrase in popular media, and literally everyone except the USA calls a sandwich that inside a bun, A "burger".  Not just a couple of countries.  I have found this to be the case in Southeast Asia, Europe (east and west) and Africa.  I don't think we can say EVERY PLACE does this without sourcing, but under WP:BLUE we can say it is a widely used term. As an Amercian, yes, it bugs me a bit, as to us, the meat makes it a "burger" but to most of the world, it is the bun that makes it a burger.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 13:09, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.  —  Paper9oll  (🔔 • 📝)  11:02, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Is there anything I can do to reach that concensus or is it just a question of waiting? TheCiramor (talk) 07:35, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually, what is needed isn't consensus, it is sourcing demonstrating the fact. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 01:44, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Would the wikipedia articles from the other countries be sufficient. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger#Ingr%C3%A9dients,_variations
 * From the understanding I have of the wikipedia rules, terms used commonly do not need to be sourced.
 * Fast-food chains using the term "Chicken Burger" in Europe:
 * - Burger King (FR:, BE:, SE:...)
 * - MacDonalds
 * - KFC
 * - Hippotamus (French Steakhouse Chain)
 * - All restaurants offering chicken burger TheCiramor (talk) 22:43, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * A burger usually refers to ground meat, not a chicken breast, and until a consensus is reached no changes should be made.The creator of the request should provide information on restaurants in America referring to chicken burgers to prove their point Awhellnawr123214 (talk) 05:53, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A quick Google for "chicken burger" returns over 18M results; many of which are from the USA. So, it is incorrect to say that "a burger usually refers to ground meat".  A burger with ground beef is a "hamburger".  A burger with chicken (ground or not) is a "chicken burger".  For references see:
 * NY Times recipe (a US newspaper): https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021780-smashed-chicken-burgers-with-cheddar-and-parsley
 * Food & Wine Magazine (a US publication): https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/chicken-burgers-crispy-cheddar-cheese
 * Google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22chicken+burger%22&source=lmns&bih=704&biw=1163&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA978CA978&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjm0JGIgK2CAxWAM1kFHeePBjEQ_AUoAHoECAEQAA
 * Christopher Rath (talk) 13:50, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you Crath, I accept my mistake here, and am fine with any changes that go ahead. Awhellnawr123214 (talk) 07:04, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Place of Origin
There's been some recent changes/reversions of the "Place of Origin" from Germany/Hamburg to the United States... can we please discuss and reach a consensus rather than Edit warring? I've temporarily changed it to "United States" which best reflects the Etymology and History sections of this page, as well the other related pages of History of the hamburge r / History of the hamburger in the United States (ie. created in the US, but named after the German town), pending a final decision here.

I note that Tikka masala page references both the UK and the Indian subcontinent as sources, however California roll doesn't mention Japan as a source, and the American-Chinese food pages I checked (eg Cashew chicken) also only list the US as a source.

Tobus (talk) 01:31, 28 August 2023 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, Encyclopedia Britannica says, "The origin of hamburger is unknown, but the hamburger patty and sandwich were probably brought by 19th-century German immigrants to the United States, ..." Christopher Rath (talk) 01:40, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * As user Roahgo pointed out there is no evidence, in this article or anywhere else, for the Hamburger (in its modern form, as a cooked ground beef patty served on bread) having been created in Germany. The first attestations of the hamburger as a sandwich are all from the US, and we don't know what evidence Britannica's "probably brought by 19th-century German immigrants" is based on.
 * On the other hand, there is ample evidence of US origin. In Andrew F. Smith's book "Hamburger: A Global History", Smith writes:
 * "The Hamburg steak’s leap from plate to sandwich was a simple one that seems inevitable from today’s perspective. But it took almost two decades before the sandwich met the Hamburg steak. The invention of the hamburger sandwich was fostered by the industrialization of America."
 * He goes on to detail the development of the hamburger sandwich in food carts in the US during the 1870s.
 * Harry Notaker's book, "A History of Cookbooks: From Kitchen to Page Over Seven Centuries" makes it clear that European recipes for Hamburger Steaks were not sandwich recipes and would not be recognizable as a hamburger in any way - they were often raw (smoked/salted rather than cooked), contained unusual ingredients such as eggs which would completely alter then texture of the dish, and were not served as sandwiches.
 * In any case recipes for minced meat patties didn't originate in Hamburg - there are recipes for this dish dating back to Rome 1200 years ago - so there's no particular reason why the Hamburg version should be cited as a point of origin. Hamburger steaks didn't originate in Hamburg - they were just the most famous version of the dish because Hamburg was known for having particularly high-quality beef. (This info also comes from Smith, along with various other sources such as the WaPo article "Who invented the hamburger? Biting into the messy history of America’s iconic sandwich." by Eric Ofgang.) Zupancic (talk) 14:12, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This Washington Post article has a good history of the hamburger: Who invented the hamburger? Biting into the messy history of America’s iconic sandwich. In it, he references a 2008 book by historian Andrew F. Smith called "Hamburger: A Global History (Edible)".  In case anyone is wondering, neither source concludes that hamburgers (as described in this article) originated in Germany. Christopher Rath (talk) 21:16, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Where-did-the-name-hamburger-come-from#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Food%20Lovers,the%20Baltic%20provinces%20of%20Russia.
 * The US government leans towards it having originated in Germany. If the US government doesn't think it's American and no other explanation can be given for it's name, I don't think it's reasonable to say it originated in the US 2A00:23C8:7E13:A201:2F5E:890F:4295:9417 (talk) 18:20, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * a burger not coming from Germany is hardly reason to say it originated in the US. Surely it should be marked as "unknown"‽ 2A00:23EE:14D0:DDC:D9F4:1BC3:4BCF:187 (talk) 18:23, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * a) That article says the word "hamburger" (not the dish itself!) refers to the German town, which is not under dispute.
 * b) The dish's only suggested origins are the US or Germany, so a source that says doesn't conclude it's from Germany is the same as saying it originated the US. Tobus (talk) 23:04, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There already exits a wiki article regarding the History of the hamburger, and it does not reach a definite answer (that being whether it truly originated in Germany or in the United States).
 * Either the place of origin should be listed as disputed between the US and Germany, or it should be omitted from the info-box entirely in my opinion. A section below can be used to give an brief description of the dispute, and then link to the already existing article that details it in length.   Thomas.andersr (talk) 22:05, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Methods of cooking
This article seems to almost give the impression that grilling is the sole means of preparing hamburgers

while likely the most popular means, grilling is not the only one.

White Castle, for instance, steams hamburgers for their sliders.

even rarer is the poached method that can be found at some Wisconsin establishments https://www.tastingtable.com/1296944/wisconsin-poached-burgers-staple-over-hundred-years/ SecretName101 (talk) 06:11, 2 September 2023 (UTC)


 * White Castle does NOT steam their burgers, they cook them on a grill. They don't flip them, and the holes in the patties allow for faster cooking (the origin story for this is interesting, look it up).  They steam their ONIONS.  As for the article you linked about POACHED burgers, yes, an interesting read, but even in that article it says " there is another way of cooking hamburgers that you're not likely to find anywhere else in the country...poaching", meaning, they are an outlier and not a standard way of cooking, so the fact that a single restaurant does it differently doesn't diminish the fact that, as a rule, burgers are grilled.  That one source, the one restaurant, isn't even enough to make a note saying other options are out there.  It would be WP:UNDUE. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 01:43, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Wrong info
burgers actually originated in Germany 75.4.219.145 (talk) 18:29, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request
In the intro, please replace the word food with dish. 2600:100C:A103:309B:4892:1F46:288:C5BE (talk) 20:20, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: no reason given for the proposed change. M.Bitton (talk) 19:53, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 November 2023
hi 204.109.64.51 (talk) 17:13, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 December 2023
origin is not USA but germany. Christianjensen5001 (talk) 15:01, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Can we make the image something that is both a decent burger and not a *cheeseburger*?
It's a page for the Hamburger and the image is a cheeseburger. And a god-awful looking one at that. Gotta get a better pic lads. 203.220.144.28 (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @203.220.144.28 tomorrow I will take a perfect picture. 208.38.228.6 (talk) 02:20, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

"Chicken burger" and US English
The article says a piece of chicken breast on a bun is not called "chicken burger" in US English. Is that because chicken just can't be part of a burger, or is it because "burger" always means ground meat? TooManyFingers (talk) 20:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)


 * There is a discussion about this earlier on this talk page. Christopher Rath (talk) 22:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That doesn't make much difference, because (a) it's hidden now, but (b) more importantly, the information isn't in the article. Either the reason should be stated right there in the article, or that mention of chicken burgers should be cut out entirely. It's pointless to come out with a factoid and leave it unexplained. TooManyFingers (talk) 06:25, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I fixed this, based on the facts. References COULD be found for this well known fact, and that possibility is sufficient. TooManyFingers (talk) 06:55, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit semi-protected
In the intro, please replace food with dish as dish is a more culinary term. 2600:100C:A211:7F18:ED6F:90C2:E068:DBFA (talk) 17:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Tollens (talk) 18:25, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Clarity on origin
Upon reading the article, it’s quite clear that the origin of the hamburger is unknown, however it is likely from either Germany or the USA. There is no general consensus and therefore seems inaccurate to put it as the USA (or Germany) individually.

I propose to change the place of origin to better reflect the consensus of the article and wider evidence with something along the lines of: “Unknown (Germany or USA)” or “Disputed (Germany or USA)”.

I feel “Unknown (Germany or USA)” best reflects the evidence available as there doesn’t appear to be any dispute due to a lack of concrete evidence. TGB13 (talk) 06:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)