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Where Hamburgers Began—and How They Became an Iconic American Food

By: Nate Barksdale

Updated: January 6, 2021 | Original: August 29, 2014

The hamburger is one of the world’s most popular foods, with nearly 50 billion served up annually in the United States alone. Although the humble beef-patty-on-a-bun is technically not much more than 100 years old, it's part of a far greater lineage, linking American businessmen, World War II soldiers, German political refugees, medieval traders and Neolithic farmers. 

READ MORE: Why Do Humans Eat Meat?

Ground Beef Comes to America

The groundwork for the ground-beef sandwich was laid with the domestication of cattle (in Mesopotamia around 10,000 years ago), and with the growth of Hamburg, Germany, as an independent trading city in the 12th century, where beef delicacies were popular. 

Jump ahead to 1848, when political revolutions shook the 39 states of the German Confederation, spurring an increase in German immigration to the United States. With German people came German food: beer gardens flourished in American cities, while butchers offered a panoply of traditional meat preparations. Because Hamburg was known as an exporter of high-quality beef, restaurants began offering a “Hamburg-style” chopped steak.

In mid-19th-century America, preparations of raw beef that had been chopped, chipped, ground or scraped were a common prescription for digestive issues. After a New York doctor, James H. Salisbury suggested in 1867 that cooked beef patties might be just as healthy, cooks and physicians alike quickly adopted the “Salisbury Steak”. Around the same time, the first popular meat grinders for home use became widely available (Salisbury endorsed one called the American Chopper) setting the stage for an explosion of readily available ground beef.

WATCH: Full episodes of  The Food That Built America  online now. New episodes premiere Sundays at 9/8c on HISTORY.

The Hamburger Becomes a Fast Food Staple

The hamburger seems to have made its jump from plate to bun in the last decades of the 19th century, though the site of this transformation is highly contested. Lunch wagons, fair stands and roadside restaurants in Wisconsin, Connecticut, Ohio, New York and Texas have all been put forward as possible sites of the hamburger’s birth. Whatever its genesis, the burger-on-a-bun found its first wide audience at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, which also introduced millions of Americans to new foods ranging from waffle ice cream cones and cotton candy to peanut butter and iced tea.

Two years later, though, disaster struck in the form of Upton Sinclair’s journalistic novel The Jungle , which detailed the unsavory side of the American meatpacking industry. Industrial ground beef was easy to adulterate with fillers, preservatives and meat scraps, and the hamburger became a prime suspect.

The hamburger might have remained on the seamier margins of American cuisine were it not for the vision of Edgar “Billy” Ingram and Walter Anderson, who opened their first White Castle restaurant in Kansas in 1921. Sheathed inside and out in gleaming porcelain and stainless steel, White Castle countered hamburger meat’s low reputation by becoming bastions of cleanliness, health and hygiene (Ingram even commissioned a medical school study to show the health benefits of hamburgers). His system, which included on-premise meat grinding, worked well and was the inspiration for other national hamburger chains founded in the boom years after World War II: McDonald’s and In-N-Out Burger (both founded in 1948), Burger King (1954) and Wendy’s (1969).

Led by McDonald’s (and helped by the introduction abroad of U.S. hamburger culture by millions of members of the American armed services during World War II), the hamburger—and American-style franchised fast-food—soon spread globally . 

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How to turn the high school “hamburger” essay into a university-level paper

It goes by many names: the 5-paragraph essay, three-tier paper, or 1-3-1 model, to name a few. Many of you know it as the “hamburger” essay – an easy-to-follow model for writing papers that’s often taught in North American high schools.

During my first semester of undergrad, I heard it again and again from my professors and TAs: don't submit a hamburger essay. "Forget everything you learned in high school," they told me, "university writing is different!"

I had always done well on my high school writing assignments. I thought essay writing in university would be a breeze. So, the idea of throwing away all my past knowledge and practice felt confusing and overwhelming. If I wasn’t supposed to write essays in university the same way I wrote them in high school, then how was I supposed to write at all? And where was I supposed to learn these mysterious new writing techniques, anyway?

Now, after many years of honing my academic writing skills and becoming a writing instructor myself, I’m here to say, loud and proud:  I love the hamburger essay.

This is somewhat of a controversial statement in higher education. For years, many professors have condemned the “hamburger” model of essay writing, resenting its rules and restrictions. And while many of these critiques are valid, I believe there are too many valuable aspects of the hamburger essay to throw it away altogether. In fact, many of the  same techniques  that make a hamburger essay great, can also be used to craft a quality academic paper.

So no, you don’t need to “forget everything you learned in high school” when it comes time to write your first university essay! Keep reading to learn how you can use turn your high school hamburger essay into a strong university-level paper.

What is the hamburger essay?

The hamburger essay is well-known and well-loved because of its simple and easy to remember structure. If you're new to the hamburger essay, check out the diagram below to learn more about how it works.

In short, each ingredient of the hamburger represents a different paragraph of the essay. It starts with an introduction paragraph and ends with a conclusion paragraph, represented by the top and bottom buns, respectively. Just like a real burger bun, these paragraphs frame the juicy contents inside – the body paragraphs – which are each represented by a different topping: lettuce, tomato, or patty.

Pay attention to the order of toppings in the hamburger essay. The lettuce comes first; it’s light and flimsy, representing one of the lighter arguments of the paper. The tomato is somewhat more robust (in terms of argument), while the patty at the end is the true “meat” of the essay. Just like the toppings of a hamburger in real-life, the body paragraphs build on one another to fill out the paper, giving it substance and flavour.

How to use the hamburger model in university

If you’re already familiar with the hamburger or 5-paragraph essay model, there are many great aspects of it that you can keep and adapt in your university essay writing . Keep reading to learn how!

1. The top bun (a.k.a the introduction paragraph)

The hamburger essay begins with a strong introduction paragraph (the top bun) that sets up the rest of the paper and presents the essay’s primary  thesis statement  or argument. In high school, students are often taught to begin their introduction paragraph with the broadest or most general information first, and gradually narrow in on the specifics. They’re also taught to begin the introduction with a narrative hook – a catchy phrase or fact to grab the reader’s attention – and to end the introduction with a “road map,” which outlines what each paragraph of the essay will discuss, in the order of information presented.

Although at the university level, introductions may be longer than one paragraph (depending on the length of the essay overall), they should still begin with more general contextual information first, then narrow in on a more focused thesis statement . This structure helps guide the reader by presenting them with the background information they require for the thesis and body paragraphs to make sense.

You can also keep the introductory “hook” and “road map” pieces of the hamburger introduction, but note the differences in what these elements look like at the university level. While high school writers often try to catch the reader’s attention by asserting a universal or historical truth (e.g. “Since the dawn of time…” or “Throughout history…”), a hook at the university level should  remain focused on the specific topic at hand  – a surprising fact or statistic works well here.

Additionally, while a high school-level road map might outline the topic of each and every body paragraph in the essay, a university-level road map should be less detailed. Because university papers are typically longer than high school papers, it makes more sense to only mention the paper’s main overarching arguments  (if at all) in the road map section, rather than summarize every paragraph.

To learn more about how to write a strong university-level introduction,  check out this WCC resource  on introductions.

2. The bottom bun (a.k.a. the conclusion paragraph)

The hamburger essay ends with a satisfying conclusion paragraph (the bottom bun) that summarizes its findings and wraps up the paper’s arguments. High school students are often taught to structure their conclusion paragraph in the reverse order of the introduction,  beginning with the most specific information and broadening out to the most general . Hamburger essay conclusions often restate the thesis at the start of the paragraph, then go on to summarize each point of the essay.

At the university level, you should continue to structure your conclusion by presenting the most specific pieces of information related to your thesis first, followed by the more general ideas. Structuring your conclusion this way helps  transition the reader out of the paper’s arguments and into a broader reflection on the topic .

However,  you don’t have to limit yourself to only one paragraph  for your conclusion (hint: introductions and conclusions typically make up 10-15% of the essay length overall). And while it’s good practice to remind your reader of the essay’s main arguments and findings, too much repetition can be a bore. Try focusing instead on the  significance  of the paper’s claims and discoveries to highlight for the reader why your essay matters – why your thesis is significant in a larger context.

For deeper insight into how to write a university-level conclusion,  view our conclusions resource  here.

3. The toppings (a.k.a. the body paragraphs)

The body paragraphs of a hamburger essay are its meatiest parts (pun intended). In high school, students are often taught to explain, and provide evidence for, their main thesis by presenting three distinct points in three separate body paragraphs, ordered roughly from the weakest point to the strongest. In this model, each body paragraph supports the essay’s thesis by providing a new piece of information to back-up the author’s primary claim. Also, each paragraph articulates its main point in a single topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph.

For university essays, there’s a lot to like about the hamburger essay paragraph model. For example, it’s important that each paragraph of your university-level paper works to substantiate the paper's overarching thesis statement . This will prevent your essay from going off on tangents – that is, presenting ideas or research that are not directly related to the essay's focused goal. You should also pay attention to the order of ideas presented; while ordering your points from weakest to strongest (as in the hamburger model) isn’t necessary, there should be a  logical flow to your ideas . Ask yourself: what does my reader need to understand first in order to understand what’s coming next?

Topic sentences are also super useful in academic papers : they help alert the reader to the paragraph’s main idea and provide context for the evidence presented within the paragraph itself. In a traditional academic essay, readers should be able to read the first sentence (or two) of each paragraph only, and still have a strong idea of the paper’s main arguments and points.

However,  university-level essays can – and should – have more than three body paragraphs . This is perhaps the biggest complaint against the hamburger essay structure: that it tricks students into thinking they can only provide three pieces of evidence to back-up their thesis statements. Academic essays, especially research essays, should present the reader with a great breadth of evidence and information to prove their claims. It’s up to you – the writer – to decide how much evidence is needed, and how it can be organized logically into body paragraphs for the reader to follow.

On a similar note,  some points in your academic paper will require more than one body paragraph to develop,  and that’s ok! Let’s say, for example, that you’re writing an essay on the benefits of free community programming for reducing loneliness amongst senior citizens. It may take only one paragraph to present your research on loneliness amongst seniors, but maybe three or four paragraphs to show why publicly-funded programs are attractive to senior citizens in particular.

While some students believe, based on the hamburger model, that each new paragraph requires a brand new topic or point, in reality, there is more flexibility to the “rules” of academic writing. As long as each of your paragraphs is tackling one coherent idea at a time,  you may choose to develop a single point over numerous body paragraphs . This is especially true if you have a lot of evidence to discuss!

To learn more about how to write strong body paragraphs at the university level,   check out this WCC resource   on body paragraphs.

Final thoughts…

Keep in mind that  every writing assignment in university is different  and not all papers follow the traditional essay format. In fact, most essay assignments come with specific guidelines from the professor, which you should always follow with care, and ask questions about if you’re unsure.

If you’re transitioning from high school and looking for help with your writing projects, why not check out our new program for first-years, Waterloo Ready to Write ! Or book an appointment with one of our friendly and helpful writing instructors at the WCC. We would love to help you out.

Writing essays in university can be intimidating, especially if you’re new at it. But remember, you’re here for a reason, and you’ve already got a great foundation to start from! Try to think about writing in university as an extension and adaptation of what you already know. If you have an open mind, take your professors’ feedback to heart, and push yourself to try new things, you’ll be setting yourself up for success.

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• Writing Tips

Hamburger Paragraph Template for Essay Writing

3-minute read

• 3rd November 2023

It almost sounds like something you might see on a menu at a fast-food restaurant, but a “hamburger paragraph” is a method of essay writing often taught in schools to help students structure their paragraphs effectively. Just as a burger consists of various layers that come together to create a satisfying whole, an essay is built up of paragraphs that follow a specific structure.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the concept of a hamburger paragraph and how it can serve as a handy template for essay writing.

Hamburger Paragraph Template

The template below lists the “ingredients” of a hamburger paragraph:

Top Bun (Topic Sentence):

Introduce the main idea of the paragraph .

Filling (Supporting Detail #1):

Introduce your first supporting detail or example that backs up your main idea.

Filling (Supporting Detail #2):

Introduce your second supporting detail or example.

Filling (Supporting Detail #3):

Introduce your third supporting detail or example. Note: Depending on the depth required, you may have more or fewer supporting details.

Bottom Bun (Concluding Sentence):

Wrap up the paragraph by restating or summarizing the main idea – or transition to the next paragraph . Ensure that every main point or idea presented in the paragraph is well-supported and rounded off with a conclusion or transition.

Example of a Hamburger Paragraph Using the Template

Here’s a paragraph about dogs written following the hamburger paragraph method:

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Dogs have a reputation for being loyal companions.

Filling #1:

Historically, dogs have been known to travel vast distances to reunite with their owners.

Filling #2:

Many breeds have been specifically bred for their loyalty traits, such as Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds.

Filling #3:

Pet owners’ personal experiences further support the claim, with countless stories of dogs displaying unwavering loyalty in various situations.

Bottom Bun:

With their history, breeding, and the personal anecdotes of many, it’s clear why dogs are cherished for their loyalty.

The  hamburger template assists writers, especially those new to essay writing, in assembling a well-structured essay, helping them organize their thoughts and research into a logical format that readers can easily follow. Students can use this structure to ensure they’re fleshing out their ideas adequately and maintaining a logical flow throughout their essays.

So next time you’re writing an essay, think of your paragraphs as a delicious stack of hamburger paragraphs, with each one adding a unique flavor to your overall composition. If you’d like a professional proofreader to review your essay and its structure once you’ve completed your first draft, we’d be happy to help. Check out our essay proofreading services , or try us out by submitting a free sample !

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Who invented the hamburger? Biting into the messy history of America’s iconic sandwich.

Hamburger history is dripping with lies.

One popular story goes that in 1900 a customer walked into Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, Conn., and asked for something he could eat on the go. Owner Louis Lassen improvised by giving him a patty of the restaurant’s steak trimmings between two pieces of toast. The customer got his carryout lunch, and the world got the hamburger sandwich.

The story has been repeated many times by Connecticut and national publications, but I have recently found proof it is not true.

Lassen may well have conceived of his sandwich on the spur of the moment, but at that point many U.S. businesses were serving hamburgers.

Beefy burger recipes, from classic to creative

In January I wrote a story that raised questions about Louis’ Lunch’s standing as the birthplace of the hamburger. However, I was not able to definitively disprove the claim. After the story ran, a reader named Thomas Pieragostini emailed me a link to a series of ads that appeared in the Shiner Gazette in Texas in the spring of 1894 that advertised “hamburger steak sandwiches” being served at a local saloon.

This early burger reference inspired me to dig deeper, and I have since found more than a dozen newspaper references to hamburgers in the 1890s, including in Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, California and Hawaii. These findings debunk the Louis’ Lunch claim and suggest other burger origin stories are not true, either. In Wisconsin, many claim the burger was invented by Charlie Nagreen, who purportedly sold a meatball between two slices of bread at an 1885 fair in Seymour. In Athens, Tex., the title of “hamburger creator” is bestowed upon Fletcher Davis, who supposedly came up with it in the 1880s. Other burger origin stories can be found in New York, Oklahoma and elsewhere, but they lack documentation.

It turns out chopped meat served between or inside bread is nearly as ancient as civilization.

“A first-century A.D. Roman cookbook by Apicius has a recipe in it that is suspiciously close to the modern burger, a minced meat patty blended with crushed nuts and heavily spiced and cooked,” says George Motz, a filmmaker and author who has researched burger history extensively.

In the mid-1700s, “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” by Hannah Glasse carried a “Hamburgh sausages” recipe, which was served on toasted bread. In Germany, a meat patty on bread called Rundstück Warm was popular by at least 1869.

8 Memorial Day grilling recipes to kick off cookout season

But the true precursor to the burger we know today seems to be an inexpensive dish called hamburger steak, which began appearing on American menus in the early 1870s. (A menu, allegedly from Delmonico’s in New York City in 1834, listed the dish. It was eventually exposed as a fake.)

These minced beef and onion patties were served on a plate, not bread, and took their name from choice cows raised in the countryside around Hamburg that supposedly provided the beef. Originally, the meat was minced by hand, but as meat grinders became more available in the late 1800s, so did hamburger steaks. By the 1880s, hamburger steaks were available at restaurants across the country. Often these steaks were served in locations that also served bread and sandwiches.

Given the frequent proximity of hamburger steak and bread — buns came later — combining these foods doesn’t seem like the work of a culinary genius. Instead, it appears to be a natural evolution.

By the late 1880s, hamburger steaks were popular across the United States. In 1887 a New York lodging house advertised “a bowl of coffee, hamburger steak and bread” for 10 cents. A few years later, in 1891, the Boston Globe carried an ad for a butcher shop selling a cookbook with a recipe for “hamburger on toast.”

A blurb in the July 25, 1893 edition of the Reno Gazette-Journal in Reno, Nev., announced that Tom Fraker had taken over the lunch counter at a local saloon, noting “Tom prides himself on his ability to make hamburger sandwiches.”

The following month, an ad boasted Fraker’s “celebrated Hamburger steak sandwiches are always on hand to replenish an empty stomach and fortify even Satan himself.”

Such a sinful association was not uncommon during the early burger history. Sold primarily at saloons and all-night lunch carts that catered to factory shift workers, the dish, at least in the imagination of polite society, seemed to have “something of the night” about it.

“‘They love darkness whose deeds are evil,’ is probably as good a reason as any why Hamburg steaks are cooked and eaten on the streets at night,” begins an 1894 San Francisco Chronicle account of street carts selling hamburger sandwiches. “A popular demand for this luxury at 2 o'clock in the morning has added a strong flavor of onion to that delicious combination of odors which surprises and delights the stranger who visits the business portion of this city between twilight and dawn.”

As I dug deeper into the burger’s history, I found that historian Andrew F. Smith had discussed some of these burger references from the 1890s in his 2008 book, “ Hamburger: A Global History .” Even so, regional burger-origin stories, or what Smith calls “hamburger fakelore,” continue to be taken as gospel in parts of the United States.

Folklorist Lucy Long says factually shaky tales of historic food “firsts” extend beyond the burger. “It’s very, very common for these origin stories to be claimed,” adds Long, the founder and director of the Center for Food and Culture .

Having the “first” of any food helps draw customers, Long explains. But they are also fueled by how that food ties in with our sense of place and identity.

“History is always a selection of what happened in the past along with an interpretation,” Long says. “People hear something, it makes sense to them, they like the image that it presents, so they start presenting it as history.”

Pieragostini, whose tip helped lead me down the burger rabbit hole, understands this pride. He used to have a local access TV show called “Connecticut Stories'' and has defended Connecticut “firsts.” Pieragostini’s great uncle patented the stoves used at Louis’ Lunch, and Pieragostini was a longtime defender of that burger origin story.

But when Pieragostini unearthed an 1894 ad for “hamburger steak sandwiches'' at a Texas saloon, he reached out to me to help set the record straight. “I was a little shocked,” he says, “but not disappointed, because you’ve got to find the truth.”

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A History of the Burger: From Ancient Rome to the Drive-Thru

2,000 years of fast food history from The World is Your Burger, a book celebrating the American icon.

Hannah Walhout is a senior editor at Travel + Leisure, where she oversees the magazine's Discoveries section and edits print essays and features with a focus on food and drink.

There's no denying that the hamburger occupies a unique place in the American mind. What other food conjures so many themes, stands for so many global forces as this iconic sandwich ? Convenience, mass production, globalization, capitalism, American exceptionalism — not to mention meat (lots of juicy, perfectly grilled meat ).

The World Is Your Burger: A Cultural History , a book by David Michaels out from Phaidon, conducts a deep dive into the development of the burger both as a food and as an idea. Michaels — a hospitality industry alum and owner of Bite Me Burger in Sydney — collects recipes, vintage photos, and chef dispatches in his beautifully designed tome. One of our favorite sections is his meticulously researched burger timeline, which traces its journey from a ground meat product to an international idol.

1st Century AD: Rome

Isicia Omentata

• The first stirrings of what came to resemble a hamburger, this ground- (minced-) meat dish contained pine nuts, pepper, and flavorings of wine and garum.

13th Century AD: The Steppes

Steak Tartare

• The Mongols were fierce horsemen who conquered most of Eurasia with thick slabs of beef tucked under their saddles, eaten after being tenderized by a day's riding.

1747: London

"Hamburg" Sausage

• Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery is published, describing this smoked sausage of ground (minced) beef, suet, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, garlic, vinegar, salt, red wine, and rum, to be served on toast.

1802: Oxford

The Oxford English Dictionary

• The English language's foremost lexicon describes Hamburg steak as "a hard slab of salted, minced [ground] beef, often slightly smoked, mixed with onions and breadcrumbs."

1845: Virginia

The Meat Grinder

• G. A. Coffman created and patented his Machine for Cutting Sausage-Meat, which featured rotating blades under a spiral feeder, akin to modern meat grinders (mincers).

1885: Erie County Fair, New York

The Menches Brothers

• There are dubious and conflicting claims that at this fair in New York State the brothers ran out of pork sausages and so put beef into a sandwich, thereby creating a burger.

1885: Seymour Fair, Wisconsin

Charlie Nagreen

• Nagreen, affectionately known as "Hamburger Charlie," apparently squashed a beef meatball between slices of bread so his customers could walk around eating — a concoction he claimed was the first hamburger.

1891: Bowden, Oklahoma

Oscar Weber Wilby

• The first documented appearance of flame-grilled beef patties in a sourdough bun, created by Bilby and his wife Fanny to celebrate the Fourth of July.

1900: New Haven, Connecticut

Louis Lassen

• The United States Library of Congress credits Lassen with creating the first hamburger, but doubt remains, as his beef patty was served between two slices of toast rather than the bun that the true burger demands.

1904: St. Louis World's Fair, Missouri

Fletcher Davis

• Davis claimed to have been serving beef in sandwiches since the 1880s and to have sold out of his "hamburgers" at this world-famous exhibition.

1906: Chicago, Illinois

• Upton Sinclair's novel about the meat-packing industry led many Americans to distrust the quality of ground (minced) beef, even though that was not Sinclair's aim at all.

1916: Wichita, Kansas

Walter Anderson

• Anderson, one of the two geniuses behind White Castle, originally started trading from a food cart, serving burgers with specifically created buns and using his own handmade spatula.

1921: Wichita, Kansas

White Castle

• Cook Walter Anderson and entrepreneur Billy Ingram opened their first restaurant and changed the course of hamburger history, with innovations in design, cooking, and serving.

1925: Pasadena, California

The Cheese Hamburger

• Lionel Sternberger, running his father's diner, The Rite Spot, claimed to be the first man to put cheese over a patty in a bun, which he called a Cheese Hamburger.

Fleischer Studios, 1931

• The New York-based animation house created the famous hamburger-eating comic character J. Wellington Wimpy for the Popeye series; the restaurant was later named after him.

Louisville, Kentucky, 1934

"A New Tang"

• That was how Kaelin's Restaurant described the taste when they melted cheese over patties, which they claimed to be the first proper cheeseburger.

1935: Denver, Colorado

Cheeseburger™?

• Louis Ballast submitted a trademark for "The Cheeseburger" for his now defunct Humpty Dumpty Drive-In, though historians query whether he received it.

1937: Glendale, California

The Big Boy

• Bob Wian founded Bob's Pantry in 1936 and within a year had gone for broke, slicing a bun into three and using two patties to create the first double-decker burger.

1948: San Bernardino, California

McDonald's

• Though the McDonald brothers had run a barbecue shack since 1940, in 1948 they switched to hamburgers and started what became the largest fast-food chain in the world.

1954: Miami, Florida

Burger King

• David Edgerton and James McLamore purchased the floundering Insta-Burger King and renamed it, creating the biggest challenger to the McDonald's fast-food crown.

1954: London

Wimpy's

• J. Lyons and Co. bought franchise rights to run Wimpy burger bars in England and opened their first as a concession in a Lyons Corner House restaurant on Coventry Street in Central London.

1955: Des Plaines, Illinois

• Ray Kroc, erstwhile milkshake-machine salesman, joined the McDonald brothers before eventually buying them out and transforming the brand into a global phenomenon.

1967: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Big Mac

• Though it wasn't introduced nationwide until a year later, 1967 saw the invention by Jim Delligatti of what has become one of McDonald's signature items, the Big Mac.

1969: Columbus, Ohio

Wendy's

• For a long time the third-biggest hamburger retailer in the world, Wendy's was a later starter when created by former Kentucky Fried Chicken head chef Dave Thomas.

Reprinted with permission from The World is Your Burger: A Cultural History by David Michaels, $39.95 at phaidon.com

Related Articles

Using the "Hamburger Method" to Write an Essay: Writing Paragraphs

• Planning the Essay
• Writing Paragraphs

The "Hamburger Method" can also be used to organize and develop your individual body paragraphs. Use the downloadable documents on the left to help you follow the instructions in the right-hand column.

The Function of Paragraphs

• Paragraphs are like a form of punctuation.
• They make written material easer to read.
• V isually, paragraphs are blocks of text parked with an indented first line.
• Functionally, paragraphs represent pieces of an essay. 

Adapted from Harvey, Michael.  The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing  (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing,  2003)

The "Hamburger Method" of Arranging a Paragraph

• The "Hamburger Method" is just one way of organizing pragraphs. 
• Understand your argument and what you wish to say to your reader.
• Decide on a sensible way to lay out the argument using a piece by piece arrangement to support, explain, and illuminate your argument.
• Stick to the plan by making sure each sentence fits with your plan.
• Topic Sentence: Like your thesis statement, the topic sentence tell your reader the context and framework of your paragraph.
• Detail Sentences: Provide the content of your paragraph.
• Conclusion Sentence: provides a brief summary or conclusion to your paragraph.
• << Previous: Planning the Essay
• Last Updated: Nov 25, 2023 12:41 AM
• URL: https://library.cdu.edu/hamburger-method

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How to write an introduction for a history essay

Every essay needs to begin with an introductory paragraph. It needs to be the first paragraph the marker reads.

While your introduction paragraph might be the first of the paragraphs you write, this is not the only way to do it.

You can choose to write your introduction after you have written the rest of your essay.

This way, you will know what you have argued, and this might make writing the introduction easier.

Either approach is fine. If you do write your introduction first, ensure that you go back and refine it once you have completed your essay. 

What is an ‘introduction paragraph’?

An introductory paragraph is a single paragraph at the start of your essay that prepares your reader for the argument you are going to make in your body paragraphs .

It should provide all of the necessary historical information about your topic and clearly state your argument so that by the end of the paragraph, the marker knows how you are going to structure the rest of your essay.

In general, you should never use quotes from sources in your introduction.

Introduction paragraph structure

While your introduction paragraph does not have to be as long as your body paragraphs , it does have a specific purpose, which you must fulfil.

A well-written introduction paragraph has the following four-part structure (summarised by the acronym BHES).

B – Background sentences

H – Hypothesis

E – Elaboration sentences

S - Signpost sentence

Each of these elements are explained in further detail, with examples, below:

1. Background sentences

The first two or three sentences of your introduction should provide a general introduction to the historical topic which your essay is about. This is done so that when you state your hypothesis , your reader understands the specific point you are arguing about.

Background sentences explain the important historical period, dates, people, places, events and concepts that will be mentioned later in your essay. This information should be drawn from your background research . 

Example background sentences:

Middle Ages (Year 8 Level)

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15 th and 16 th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges.

WWI (Year 9 Level)

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe.

Civil Rights (Year 10 Level)

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success.

Ancient Rome (Year 11/12 Level)  

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times.

2. Hypothesis

Once you have provided historical context for your essay in your background sentences, you need to state your hypothesis .

A hypothesis is a single sentence that clearly states the argument that your essay will be proving in your body paragraphs .

A good hypothesis contains both the argument and the reasons in support of your argument. 

Example hypotheses:

Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery.

Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare.

The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1 st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state.

3. Elaboration sentences

Once you have stated your argument in your hypothesis , you need to provide particular information about how you’re going to prove your argument.

Your elaboration sentences should be one or two sentences that provide specific details about how you’re going to cover the argument in your three body paragraphs.

You might also briefly summarise two or three of your main points.

Finally, explain any important key words, phrases or concepts that you’ve used in your hypothesis, you’ll need to do this in your elaboration sentences.

Example elaboration sentences:

By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period.

Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined.

The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results.

While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period.

4. Signpost sentence

The final sentence of your introduction should prepare the reader for the topic of your first body paragraph. The main purpose of this sentence is to provide cohesion between your introductory paragraph and you first body paragraph .

Therefore, a signpost sentence indicates where you will begin proving the argument that you set out in your hypothesis and usually states the importance of the first point that you’re about to make. 

Example signpost sentences:

The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20 th century.

The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

Putting it all together

Once you have written all four parts of the BHES structure, you should have a completed introduction paragraph. In the examples above, we have shown each part separately. Below you will see the completed paragraphs so that you can appreciate what an introduction should look like.

Example introduction paragraphs: 

Castles were an important component of Medieval Britain from the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 until they were phased out in the 15th and 16th centuries. Initially introduced as wooden motte and bailey structures on geographical strongpoints, they were rapidly replaced by stone fortresses which incorporated sophisticated defensive designs to improve the defenders’ chances of surviving prolonged sieges. Medieval castles were designed with features that nullified the superior numbers of besieging armies, but were ultimately made obsolete by the development of gunpowder artillery. By the height of the Middle Ages, feudal lords were investing significant sums of money by incorporating concentric walls and guard towers to maximise their defensive potential. These developments were so successful that many medieval armies avoided sieges in the late period. The early development of castles is best understood when examining their military purpose.

The First World War began in 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The subsequent declarations of war from most of Europe drew other countries into the conflict, including Australia. The Australian Imperial Force joined the war as part of Britain’s armed forces and were dispatched to locations in the Middle East and Western Europe. Australian soldiers’ opinion of the First World War changed from naïve enthusiasm to pessimistic realism as a result of the harsh realities of modern industrial warfare. Following Britain's official declaration of war on Germany, young Australian men voluntarily enlisted into the army, which was further encouraged by government propaganda about the moral justifications for the conflict. However, following the initial engagements on the Gallipoli peninsula, enthusiasm declined. The naïve attitudes of those who volunteered in 1914 can be clearly seen in the personal letters and diaries that they themselves wrote.

The 1967 Referendum sought to amend the Australian Constitution in order to change the legal standing of the indigenous people in Australia. The fact that 90% of Australians voted in favour of the proposed amendments has been attributed to a series of significant events and people who were dedicated to the referendum’s success. The success of the 1967 Referendum was a direct result of the efforts of First Nations leaders such as Charles Perkins, Faith Bandler and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. The political activity of key indigenous figures and the formation of activism organisations focused on indigenous resulted in a wider spread of messages to the general Australian public. The generation of powerful images and speeches has been frequently cited by modern historians as crucial to the referendum results. The significance of these people is evident when examining the lack of political representation the indigenous people experience in the early half of the 20th century.

In the late second century BC, the Roman novus homo Gaius Marius became one of the most influential men in the Roman Republic. Marius gained this authority through his victory in the Jugurthine War, with his defeat of Jugurtha in 106 BC, and his triumph over the invading Germanic tribes in 101 BC, when he crushed the Teutones at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (102 BC) and the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae (101 BC). Marius also gained great fame through his election to the consulship seven times. Gaius Marius was the most one of the most significant personalities in the 1st century BC due to his effect on the political, military and social structures of the Roman state. While Marius is best known for his military reforms, it is the subsequent impacts of this reform on the way other Romans approached the attainment of magistracies and how public expectations of military leaders changed that had the longest impacts on the late republican period. The origin of Marius’ later achievements was his military reform in 107 BC, which occurred when he was first elected as consul.

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The Burger Metaphor to avoid bad paragraphs

Salads are good. They have their place, but right now, we are making a sandwich, and we need buns to hold it all together.              

Composing a paragraph is like building a hamburger. First, we need the buns to hold the sandwich together.  Without the bread to hold everything in, it's just not a sandwich. It's a salad.  

Notice the buns are similar. They are both made of bread; they both have similar jobs. But they are distinct as well. For example, the bottom bun (the 

conclusion) is flat and allows the burger to sit nicely on the plate and become part of the whole meal (the entire essay). 

The heart and soul of a history essay is the factual information. One cannot do historical analysis without historical facts to analyze. Similarly, the heart and soul of our burger is the meat. 

The factual information is the heart and soul of a paragraph. One of the biggest problems that students tend to have when they begin to write historical essays is that

 they do not have factual information that they can analyze. Therefore, if they do try to make a burger, they end up with a lot of bread and hardly any meat. 

Often, students will turn in a grandiose topic sentence and a likewise complex conclusion

with a small sliver of bacon in between. Usually, students have read or heard a thesis and are simply repeating this idea without the ability to defend it. Good historical writing is original. The idea  being defended in the paragraph comes from the student's  own ability to develop an opinion based on their own historical analysis, which, in turn, requires historical knowledge. 

No amount of fancy misdirection, big words, vague ideas, or wordy and unclear sentences, can make up for the fact that the sandwich doesn't have much substance.  

Occasionally, history teachers requiring students to learn names, dates, or places will hear the criticism,

"memorization is the lowest form of learning."

What the critics fail to recognize is that in  Bloom's Taxonomy, while  "memorization" or "remembering"

is lowest on the list, and one should certainly strive to go beyond mere memorization, it is also the base of the pyramid. One cannot move toward analysis and the creation of original work without first remembering the factual information. 

An essay containing paragraphs that contain  only  factual information, is pretty dry, boring, and is little more than a bulleted list. 

While a hamburger patty between two buns meets the technical definition of a 

hamburger, it is really missing something.

The toppings that one places on the burger really make the hamburger one's own creation. 

While the buns hold the sandwich together, the toppings that

one places on the burger really make the hamburger one's own creation. The historical analysis of factual information is what makes the historical writing one's own. The dry, seemingly isolated

meat and bun are connected together through the historical analysis. These toppings give the burger a unique flavor. 

As one practices and becomes more and more capable, one is able to recognize more nuanced ways to explore and articulate historical arguments. Unfortunately, we all want to be the gourmet chef without putting in the work needed. 

We tend to see some spices on the shelf and don't really understand if they really go together or not. As one becomes stronger at historical analysis and draws from more factual information, one can begin to start adding a pinch of salt and pepper, or other spices that help create great flavor. Using big words, or writing in such a convoluted way in order to "sound smart"does not have the desired effect. When one says something like "..and the periphery of that thing called the empire outspread to include more territorial holdings..." rather than simply saying "...the empire expanded..." one does not sound smart, one sounds like someone  trying to sound smart. 

We may not be gourmet chefs but we can all begin to create our own unique hamburgers. 

We may not all be historians, but we can all create our own unique historical essays. 

Descriptive Essay About Burgers

Who doesn’t love burgers and fries? And who wouldn’t love to eat at the best dine-in that serves the best of it? Well, I know the best place to go. Thurman Cafe, located in Columbus, Ohio. They serve a variety of food and they all taste amazing. They serve things such as starters, sloppy fries, famous fries, wings, pizza thins, salads, famous burgers, and so much more. But the main thing is what’s the best there. Thurman Cafe is a very famous restaurant that’s known for their burgers; mostly, but also fries, sandwiches and stuff. Thurman Cafe is a restaurant that was opened by Nick Suclescy and passed through the family . And have been a landmark since 1942 in German Village. Their signature dishes are the Thurmanator and Thurman Burger. …show more content…

Even though I hate cheese on my burgers, that was the first and best burger with cheese ever. My mom ordered a Thurman burger, and my sister ordered a cheeseburger deluxe. And since we aren 't very much of a meat eater, it was still delicious even with how much meat the burger comes with. My mom loved the Thurman burger and said it was the best she had ever had. By the way, no we didn 't try the famous signature dish, The Thurmanator, that would be too insane for us to do. The next thing is the best thing ever. The fries, which are my favorite food . We all ordered different types of fries, so we could try one another 's. I ordered a basket of bacon and cheddar loaded fries, my mom ordered a basket of fries and gravy, and my sister ordered a basket of Macedonian fries. They were all very different, but very good. I tried to go with something I know that I would like because I 'm a very picky eater. On the other hand, my mom and sister went totally out of their comfort zone with trying something different. They said it was very delicious and would buy it again. So I had to try them also, and they were off the top, more amazing than what I thought. They also provide other sandwiches and stuff, in case anyone didn 't prefer a burger. We went to Thurman To Go a second time and tried the other sandwiches they had. Now with that being said, that was a crazy experience. I ordered a B.L.T. that includes bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo on Texas toast. My mom

Hibachi Grill Research Paper

For once me and family were all available that day to see each other and we went there to eat and honestly it could've been better, We have been there plenty of times before and normally the food is good but that day it was a little off . I have my go to foods every Time I go there and one of those things are spicy garlic shrimp and that day the shrimp was way overcooked and mushy. I was so disappointed because that is one

St. Paul Magazine. In San Diego the official Smashburger offers fresh avocado, fresh cilantro and onions, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, sour cream and chipotle mayo on a torte roll, served with a wedge of lime. In Colorado where Smashburger originated the specialty burger there is a fresh grilled half pound patty , fresh mild green chilies, melted cheddar cheese, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo on a chipotle bun. This burger was the winner of Denver 's A-List Best Burger in 2010. For the Las Vegas Sin City Smashburger includes a fried egg, apple wood smoked bacon, American cheese, grilled onions, haystack onions and smash sauce all served on an egg bun, this burger was named one of the top burgers of 2010 by the Las Vegas Weekly. pr news wire (2011, March 15) The Spicy Baja burger that consists of pepper jack cheese, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, onion on a spicy chipotle bun is just another one of Smashbugers hottest sellers. One of Smashburger’s greatest concepts is the fact that all the prices are the same at each location no matter what state you are in, they range from $5.99 to $6.99 depending on if you want the smash size or the big smash size. Smashburger’s benefits are simple, they use only 100% Angus beef, fresh never frozen meats. Free of MSG and contain no hydrogenated fats or oils or any trans fats, except for those items which occur naturally. Cook to order within just a

McDonald’s vs. Burger King Essay

Unlimited, endless, fast food choices, and yet there are two that stand out above the rest. McDonald’s and Burger King are the two biggest burger fast food chains in the world. So let me ask you this, who has a better menu? Who’s Cheaper? And which one is healthier? This debate will once and for all come to an end, once all of these points have been met throughout my paper. McDonald’s vs. Burger King has been a long running argument. You will finally come to realize that McDonald’s is the better choice for you.

Red Robin Review

Looking for a fantastic place to spend quality time with family? Red Robin is obviously a phenomenal choice where the whole family can dine! One can’t go wrong with this place. From the eccentric setting, the famous food, and deferential service, this restaurant completely deserves five stars. Red Robin will satisfy every craving. So why waste money or obsess over soggy McDonalds fries, when appetizing steak fries and gourmet burgers are awaiting for just a dollar more? Try burgers such as the mouth-watering Guacamole Bacon Burger, known for its smoky, flavorful bacon. Or possibly the Whiskey River BBQ Burger basted with Red Robin’s signature Whiskey River BBQ Sauce, and lasso’d together with the cheddar cheese, crispy onion straws,

Essay about Evaluation on a Restaurant

It came with croutons, lettuce, tomatoes, grilled chicken tossed in ceasar dressing in an enormous plate. I was so satisfied with my appetizer and the delicious complimentary bread that I had to order a salad and even that was too much for me to finish. Even though I was too full, I had to order one of their infamous cheesecakes after all. I ordered the Oreo Extreme which was a special edition cheesecake and it was big and delicious enough to feed my whole family.

Descriptive Essay : Myrtle Beach

After we had finished shopping we went to a mexican restaurant we usually go to. When I get really hungry I like need food that second or I get sick, we call that a “food panic”. So I was having a food panic and was like really hungry. I really like the restaurant because of the chips. I love the chips at mexican restaurants. For my main meal I got the best cheese quesadilla ever. The quesadilla was so cheesy that the cheese would stretch forever, there was this seasoning on it that made it really spicy. Overall the meal was really tasty.

Persuasive Essay About Whataburger

Since 1950, Whataburger has proudly served a bigger, better burger. Over six decades ago, an adventurous and determined entrepreneur named Harmon Dobson had a bold idea: to serve a burger so big that it took two hands to hold, and so good that after a single bite customer couldn't help but exclaim. A burger restaurant should be clean and have a fresh food. First, people try many restaurants, but sometimes if they like something, they will keep going to same restaurant even if wasn’t that good, but they used to like it form the begging.

Penn Station Marketing Strategy

Initially, the restaurant had only four sandwiches where the star was the grilled cheese steak. Along with the subs, fresh-cut french fries, and hand-squeezed lemonade were served. The food was prepared on order, directly in front of the customers using the finest meats and the freshest ingredients. The concept of on-order freshly prepared food quickly became a hit.

Unlike many food chains, Five Guy’s produce fresh product to give to the customer. Five Guy’s uses the leanest ground beef and potatoes that are grown in Idaho and not California (Boone & Kurtz, pg 78). Their burgers are not frozen like most companies and the bread is delivered daily at each location. They believe that good burger takes time and patience to make. “That’s why we can’t do drive-thru it takes too long. We had a sign: If you’re in a hurry,

Brisket Burger History

Its main feature is the 70-to-30 meat-to-fat ratio patty. But, it's the slice of seared pork belly that really sets the burger off. The chef then places a sunny-side-up

Longhorn Steak House Menu Analysis

The steaks on the LongHorn Steakhouse menu are all high quality and perfectly cooked to order. Those who prefer a lighter meal can opt for a grilled chicken salad or a 7-pepper steak salad. The desserts are so amazing, it will be hard to just choose one of them. The strawberries and cream shortcake is light and fluffy, while the caramel apple

Descriptive Essay About Clocked

Everyone loved the food they ordered. My boyfriend, Avery Eubanks, ordered the Friendship Burger, which is a hamburger patty topped with mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes. Avery stated, “My hamburger tasted really good, it was probably one of the best burgers I’ve had in awhile. The meat was really juicy I could tell that it wasn’t the frozen kind. Clocked kind of reminded me of Steak n Shake, but ten times better.” Clocked has many different burgers to choose from.My mother, Beth Phillips, tried the Ring of Fire burger. She described her experience of Clocked, stating, “I was craving something spicy, so I decided to try the Ring of Fire burger. I also ordered Cajun spicy fries- I wanted a good kick! The burger was cooked to a perfect medium/ medium-well and served on a sesame bun. They claim to only serve organic and natural ingredients that are free of antibiotics, growth hormones, synthetic pesticides and herbicides, chemical fertilizers, ammonia, and other additives. All of our food is cooked-fresh-to-order. My mouth watering burger came with a ring of pickled jalapenos, melted pepper jack cheese, and a spread of chipotle dressing under the bun. The beef patty was very tender and you could tell it was served fresh. The toppings had just the right amount of flavor- it was just what I was craving.” Clocked offers a variety of meal options, allowing everyone to find something they can

Dude's Drive Inn Research Paper

We offer a super fun dining experience from start to finish. It all begins with ordering. Instead of coming into the dining room, standing in line and placing an order, one of our friendly staff comes out to the car to take your order. Place an order for one of our burgers, such as the Big Dude, or one try one of our famous pastrami sandwiches. No matter what you choose, it will be cooked to perfection, and it will be a treat for the taste buds. Some golden

Argumentative Essay 'The All-American'

With Their Choice Of The Following Delicious Ingredients: Bacon, Peas, Chicken, Pesto, Petite Franks, Jalapenos, And Roasted Red Peppers, Served In Our Cheddar Sauce Accompanied By Cheddar Garlic Bread.

A Comparison of Two Barbecue Restaurants Essay example

The obvious question in comparing two restaurants is which has the better food. The menu at Hy's was pathetic. If you wanted to eat barbecue, you had to choose from only two selections: the sandwich plate and the barbecue plate. The first thing I noticed when the waitress brought out the food (besides her skin tight "Chic" jeans and the apron stolen from long John Silvers) was the extreme lack of barbecue. Both plates had plenty of potato salad, coleslaw, and curly-Q fries, but neither had enough barbecue to come close to filling me up.

Related Topics

Informative Essay On Burgers

Show More Burgers. Who doesn’t love them? Whether you’re meat eater or vegetarian, the burger is an essential in the homes of many Canadians. A quick and easy meal to prep, burgers are the perfect staple for creating memories with loved ones at a party, event, or dining room table. With so many varieties and choices to create the perfect patty, there is no risk of even the pickiest eater going hungry. A long and rich history The idea of the hamburger has been around for centuries. While the exact time frame cannot be pinned down, the concept of a patty of meat can be found in a variety of cultures over time. From the Ancient Greeks to the Mongolian Dynasty, meat patties were popular amongst the masses. Using bread to sandwich the meat took a little bit of time to pick up on. The word sandwich isn’t even found in record history until 18th century when it was named after the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who enjoyed eating a sandwich so his fingers didn’t stain his playing cards. It was in the late 19th century that the idea of hamburgers appeared in restaurants around New York City. …show more content… The invention of the meat grinder launched around the same time and made it very easy for meat to be minced and then sold in large quantities for a cheap price at various marketplaces. Due to the low cost of preparation, the idea of the hamburger took off as more and more restaurants placed it on their menus. In the 1930’s the named Hamburg steak changed to the modern day name of hamburger, and then shortened even more to just burger. By shorting it to this suffix, it was easier to advertise the variety of burgers available - cheeseburger, bacon burger, and lamb burger just to name a

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2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

A History of Moscow in 13 Dishes

Jun 06 2018.

War, hunger, and some of the world’s great doomed social experiments all changed the way that Moscow eats.

Moscow, the European metropolis on Asia’s western flank, has always been a canvas for competing cultures. Its cuisine is no different. The ancient baselines of winter grains, root vegetables, and cabbage acquired scaffolding from both directions: eastern horsemen brought meat on sticks, western craftsmen brought pastries, and courtly French chefs came and drowned it all in cream.

History has a place on the plate here, as well: war, hunger, and some of the world’s great doomed social experiments from Serfdom to Communism to Bandit Capitalism all changed the way that Moscow eats. So in the spirit of all of those grand failures, we—a Russian chef and an American writer—will attempt here to reduce the towering history of this unknowable city to 13 dishes, with some Imperial past but a special emphasis on the more recent decades of culinary paroxysms as Moscow emerged from its Soviet slumber.

Olivier Salad

To visualize the long marriage between French and Russian cuisines, picture Peter the Great, on a diplomatic sojourn to Paris in 1717, a “ stranger to etiquette ”, meeting the 7-year-old boy-king Louis XV and lifting him in the air out of sheer elán. These things were simply not done, and yet, there they were. Peter’s joyful (and often envious) fascination with all things French took hold, among other places, in the kitchen. He brought French chefs back to his palaces, and then the lesser nobility followed suit, and when the first restaurants emerged in Moscow, they also spoke French. The Hermitage Restaurant, which was open from 1864 until history intervened in 1917, had a Francophone Belgian named Lucien Olivier as a chef, and he made a salad that was a perfectly unrestrained combination of French flavors and Russian ingredients: grouse! Veal tongue! Proto-mayonnaise! The ingredients now tend toward the pedestrian—boiled beef, dill pickles, various vegetables all bound with mayonnaise—and it has become a staple of Russian cuisine, especially on New Year’s. And yes, if you’ve ever seen the lonely Ensalada Rusa wilting behind the sneezeguard of a Spanish tapas bar, that is supposed to be a successor to the Olivier. But in Moscow, you should eat Matryoshka ’s version, which is not the original recipe but has some of that imperial richness: crayfish, quail, sturgeon caviar, and remoulade, all under a translucent aspic skirt, for 990₽ ($16).

There’s a type of expression around bottling things—bottled lightning, summer in a jar, etc.—that feels very apt here. What exactly is bottled with vareniye (jam)? A lot more than just fruit. These jams, which tend to be thinner than western varieties—with whole berries or fruit chunks in syrup—are bottled with a lot of Russian identity. There’s the Russian love of countryside. Deep dacha culture of summer cottages and personal orchards. Traditional naturopathy (raspberry vareniye taken with tea will fight fever). And above all, friendship is bottled here— vareniye made from the overabundance of fruit at one’s dacha is the most typical Russian gift, real sharing from real nature, even in the often-cynical heart of Europe’s largest megacity. Visitors who are short on lifelong friendships in Moscow can pick some up fine vareniye at any Lavka Lavka shop (we recommend the delicate young pine cone jam) or, curiously enough, at many Armenian stores.

Borodinsky Bread

The clinical-sounding title of Lev Auerman’s 1935 classic Tekhnologiya Khlebopecheniya ( Bread Baking Technology) doesn’t promise scintillation. But Auerman’s recipe for rye bread changed Russian bread forever. An older legend had it that the bread was baked dark for mourning by a woman widowed in the battle of Borodino in 1812, but the real birth of the bread came from Auerman’s recipes. A modification on sweet, malted Baltic breads, Auerman’s Borodinsky bread was 100% rye and used caraway or anise. The recipe has evolved a bit—today it is 80% rye and 20% wheat high extraction flour and leans more on coriander than caraway. But its flavor profile (sweet, chewy) as well as its characteristic L7 mold —a deep brick of bread—has made it easily identifiable as the traditional, ubiquitous, every-occasion bread of Moscow. You can buy it everywhere, but the Azbuka Vkusa high-end markets have a reliably good sliced version.

Buckwheat Grechka

Look closely at those Russians who have followed their money to live in London, or are vacationing in Cyprus or Antalya. See the slight melancholy that not even cappuccinos or sunshine can erase. It’s not because Russians are gloomy by nature; it’s probably because there is no real grechka outside of Russia and Ukraine, and that is devastating. Buckwheat grain and groats— grechka (or grecha in Saint Petersburg)—are deep in the culture. It’s a wartime memory: May 9 Victory Day celebrations feature military kitchens serving buckwheat like they did at the front. It’s a little slice of Russian history that lies somewhere between oatmeal and couscous. In Moscow, eat it at Dr. Zhivago with milk (180₽/US$2.90) or mushrooms (590₽/US$9.50), and rejoice.

Mimoza Salad

This fantastically expressive egg-and-canned-fish salad is a testament to Soviet ingenuity—it’s the ultimate puzzle to make a drastically limited food chain sparkle—and the universal human thrill of layering foods. The geological creation starts with a base layer of fish, then layers of grated cooked potato, mayonnaise, shredded cheese, grated carrots, sweet onion, diced egg whites and then capped with a brilliant yellow crumble of boiled egg yolk. It sits there on the plate, dazzling like the flowering mimosa tree it is named after. The taste? Well, it’s comfort food. Pick some up to go at any Karavaev Brothers location —the excellent deli chain sells it for 650₽ (US$10.40) a kilo.

It seems odd, almost impossible, to imagine a time in Russia before shashlik. It’s meat on a stick, something that all humans should have had on the menu since at least the time of Prometheus. But shashlik as we know it know—cubes of marinated meat cooked with vegetables over a mangal grill—didn’t really take off in Russia until the early 1900s. And due to a lack of suitable meat in much of the Soviet era (there were no meat cattle herds, only dairy), we’re starting the clock on shashlik in the late Soviet period. Despite its relatively recent (re)appearance, it is now the ubiquitous grill phenomenon of Russia, a welcome ritual of summer.

Much of Russian cuisine has borrowed heavily from Central Asia and further east over the millennia ( pelmeni anyone?), but plov is a striking example of an entire eastern dish making its way directly into Russian households. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and upheaval in many Central Asian Soviet Republics, mass economic migration to Moscow took off in the late 80s and early 90s. Central Asians today are the lifeblood of the Moscow labor force (part of up to 10-12 million Central Asian migrants living in Russia), and plov—rice steamed in stock with meat and vegetables—has jumped from the migrant communities to the homes of Muscovites everywhere. It has developed an unfortunate reputation for being a food that even finicky kids will eat, so there is a lot of harried domestic plov being made. But you can get a fully expressed Uzbek version at Danilovsky Market, online at plov.com , or at Food City—the surf-and-turf Tsukiji of Moscow.

The Big Mac

So many of the difficulties in American-Russian relations come down to one foundational attitude problem: The Americans (that’s half of this writing duo) were incredibly, distressingly smug through the entire fall of the Soviet Union. We mistook Soviet failure for an American victory, and that made all the difference. What does that have to do with a Big Mac? Well, when Russia’s first McDonald’s opened on Pushkinskaya in 1990 and 5000 people turned out to wait in line for the first taste of America, we back home in the states mistook it for culinary and commercial superiority. But there was something more complicated happening: Russians had been denied Western goods for so long and with such force that any outside identity was much-needed oxygen. And the long-term victory, as McDonald’s has continued to thrive in post-Soviet Russia, really belongs to the local franchise, which used higher-quality ingredients than in the U.S. and created a chain that was successful not because of its American identity but because of its Russian modifications. We wouldn’t recommend eating at any McDonald’s, especially not when there is Teremok for your fast-food needs, but having a soda in the original location is one way to sit and ponder the sin of hubris. And to use the free toilet and Wi-Fi.

The crown jewel of Levantine meat preparations, perhaps the single greatest street meat in the world: Shawarma. It first came to Moscow with a shawarma joint across from the Passazh mall, opened in the early 90s by Syrian cooks who dazzled masses with their sizzling, spinning, spiced meat emporium. Lines that stretched into the hundreds of people weren’t uncommon in those heady early days. And even though the original spot closed many years ago, Moscow shawarma only grew from there, mutating into the beast it is today, where you’re likely to find chicken, cabbage, mayo and a thin tomato sauce all combining to make the Levant a distant memory.

Fish Tartare aka Sashimi

One result of the aforementioned American smugness is that the West seemed surprised at how rapidly 1990s Russia assimilated some of the most hardcore capitalist traits, including but not limited to conspicuous consumerism. Moscow’s new elite was very, very good at that. What could be more conspicuous that recreating a restrained, exclusive seafood cuisine from Japan in the chaotic, landlocked megacity of Moscow? The very improbability of high-end sushi and sashimi in Moscow fueled much of its allure, and even though the trends have moved on from sushi, you can still tell the emotional attachment that the oligarch class has to those formative wastes of money. Sumosan restaurant started in Moscow back in 1997 and has since expanded to Monte Carlo and Londongrad , where they serve a dish that they call Fish Tartare, among others, in their restaurants and through their private jet catering service.

Blue Cheese roll

If the early elite sushi restaurants in Moscow were the frivolous edge of a food phenomenon, then Yakitoriya , a chain which started in the late 1990s, democratized it with affordable sushi rolls geared to local tastes. The Blue Cheese Roll, available now on their menu, seems like the apex (or nadir) of the Russianized roll: salmon, smoked eel, cucumber, cream cheese, Blue Cheese sauce. It might not be Jiro’s dream, but a true Russian middle class, one that can work honestly, earn meaningful salaries, and have a freaky sushi roll at the end of the week just like the rest of us—that’s something worthing dreaming for. Blue Cheese Roll, Yakitoriya, 417₽ (US$6.70)

If you’re American, have you ever wondered why tacos took over middle America but sopes remain virtually unknown? It’s curious how a country can assimilate some foods from their neighbors and but remain blissfully ignorant of others. That may explain what took place two years ago in Moscow, when the city seemingly discovered, as if for the first time, the bagged awesomeness that is khinkali , a soup dumpling from Russia’s southern neighbor Georgia. It became very trendy very quickly, and khinkali joints sprouted across Moscow like griby after a rain. But it wasn’t just that dish: what they were serving was a bit of the imagined southern, sybaritic lifestyle of the Caucasus, as promised in restaurant names like Est’ Khinkali Pit Vino ( Eat Khinkali Drink Wine ). Your best bets are at the stately Sakhli , around 100₽ (US$1.60) per soft, fulsome dumpling, or the more modernized Kafe Khinkalnaya on Neglinnaya Street , 100₽ (US$0.80) a dumpling.

We have named burrata—yes, that Italian alchemy of cheese and cream—the Perfect Dish of Moscow 2018, if only because it is the Dish of the Moment, ready to be enjoyed at the height of its faddishness now, and equally ready to be replaced when the city decides to move on. Read Anna Maslovskaya’s masterful breakdown of why—and where—to eat burrata in Moscow.

Top image: Olivier salad with chicken. Photo by: Kvector /Shutterstock

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The Perfect Dish: The Moscow Burrata

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Essay on Burger

Students are often asked to write an essay on Burger in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Burger

What is a burger.

A burger is a popular food that has a cooked patty, usually made from beef, placed between two halves of a bun. Many people like to add cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, and sauces to make it tastier.

History of Burgers

Burgers started in the United States and have become famous all over the world. They were first sold at a fair in 1904, and since then, they have been a favorite meal for many people, especially kids.

Making a Burger

To make a burger, you cook the meat patty, put it on a bun, and add your favorite toppings. You can cook burgers on a grill or a pan.

Eating Burgers

Burgers are often eaten with hands and can be messy. They are a fun meal to eat outside at picnics or parties. Some restaurants are famous for making very good burgers.

Burgers and Health

While burgers can be delicious, eating too many can be unhealthy. It’s important to enjoy them in moderation and include vegetables and other healthy foods in your diet.

Also check:

• 10 Lines on Burger
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Burger

250 Words Essay on Burger

A burger is a popular food that many people enjoy. It is usually made up of a cooked patty that is often beef, placed inside a sliced bun. Besides beef, patties can be made from other meats like chicken, or even from plants for those who do not eat meat. The bun is like a type of bread that holds everything together.

Ingredients in a Burger

The patty in the middle is the main part of a burger, but there are other things added to make it tastier. These include lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, cheese, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Some people like to add their own special ingredients to make their burgers unique.

Where to Find Burgers

Burgers are so loved that they can be found almost everywhere. Fast food restaurants sell them, and they are a common choice for a quick meal. You can also find burgers at sit-down restaurants where they are often made with special recipes. If you like cooking, you can make your own burger at home with ingredients from the store.

Why People Like Burgers

People like burgers because they are delicious and can be eaten with hands, making them easy to enjoy. They are also very filling, which means they can satisfy hunger well. With so many different toppings to choose from, everyone can have their burger just the way they like it.

In summary, a burger is a tasty, convenient food that comes in many varieties. Whether you buy it or make it yourself, a burger is a treat that people from all over the world love to eat.

500 Words Essay on Burger

A burger is a popular food that many people enjoy. It is made of a cooked patty, usually round in shape, which is often made from beef. This patty is placed between two pieces of bread called a bun. The basic burger can be made more exciting by adding different toppings like cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, and sauces such as ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise.

The History of Burgers

The burger has an interesting history. It is believed to have come from Germany, from the city of Hamburg. When people from Germany moved to the United States, they brought the idea of the Hamburg steak with them. Over time, this evolved into the hamburger we know today. The first burgers were just meat and bread, but as time went on, cooks started to add other things to make it taste better.

Types of Burgers

There are many types of burgers. Some are made with different kinds of meat like chicken, turkey, or even fish. Others are made without meat at all and use ingredients like beans or vegetables; these are called veggie burgers. Each type of burger has its own special taste, and people can choose what they like best.

How to Make a Burger

Making a burger is simple. First, you shape the meat into a round patty. Then, you cook it on a grill or a pan until it’s done the way you like it. Next, you get the bun ready by cutting it in half. Some people like to toast the bun to make it a little crispy. After that, you put the cooked patty on the bottom half of the bun and add any toppings you want. Finally, you put the top half of the bun on, and your burger is ready to eat.

Burgers Around the World

Even though burgers started in one place, they are now eaten all over the world. In different countries, people have made their own special versions of burgers. For example, in India, you might find a burger with spices and chutney, while in Japan, you might find a burger with teriyaki sauce and a grilled pineapple slice.

Why People Love Burgers

People love burgers for many reasons. They taste good, they’re easy to eat with your hands, and you can make them just the way you like them. Whether you’re at a restaurant, a fast-food place, or at home, there’s a burger for everyone. Plus, burgers are great for parties or when you’re hanging out with friends because they’re fun and casual food.

It’s important to remember that while burgers can be delicious, they should be eaten in moderation. Some burgers, especially those from fast-food restaurants, can have a lot of calories and fat. It’s a good idea to include healthy toppings like lettuce and tomato and to choose lean meats or veggie patties when you can. Balance is key, and enjoying a burger once in a while as part of a balanced diet is perfectly okay.

In conclusion, the burger is a simple yet wonderful food that brings joy to many. From its origins to the many ways it can be made and enjoyed, the burger is a true favorite for people of all ages. Whether you like your burger plain or loaded with toppings, there’s no denying the special place it holds in the world of food.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Exercise And Health
• Essay on Evolution Of Transport
• Essay on Evolution Of Technology

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

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Advertisement

What Solar Eclipse-Gazing Has Looked Like for the Past 2 Centuries

Millions of people on Monday will continue the tradition of experiencing and capturing solar eclipses, a pursuit that has spawned a lot of unusual gear.

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By Sarah Eckinger

• April 8, 2024

For centuries, people have been clamoring to glimpse solar eclipses. From astronomers with custom-built photographic equipment to groups huddled together with special glasses, this spectacle has captivated the human imagination.

Creating a Permanent Record

In 1860, Warren de la Rue captured what many sources describe as the first photograph of a total solar eclipse . He took it in Rivabellosa, Spain, with an instrument known as the Kew Photoheliograph . This combination of a telescope and camera was specifically built to photograph the sun.

Forty years later, Nevil Maskelyne, a magician and an astronomy enthusiast, filmed a total solar eclipse in North Carolina. The footage was lost, however, and only released in 2019 after it was rediscovered in the Royal Astronomical Society’s archives.

Telescopic Vision

For scientists and astronomers, eclipses provide an opportunity not only to view the moon’s umbra and gaze at the sun’s corona, but also to make observations that further their studies. Many observatories, or friendly neighbors with a telescope, also make their instruments available to the public during eclipses.

Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen, Fridtjof Nansen and Sigurd Scott Hansen observing a solar eclipse while on a polar expedition in 1894 .

Women from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and their professor tested out equipment ahead of their eclipse trip (to “catch old Sol in the act,” as the original New York Times article phrased it) to New London, Conn., in 1922.

A group from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania traveled to Yerbaniz, Mexico, in 1923, with telescopes and a 65-foot camera to observe the sun’s corona .

Dr. J.J. Nassau, director of the Warner and Swasey Observatory at Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, prepared to head to Douglas Hill, Maine, to study an eclipse in 1932. An entire freight car was required to transport the institution’s equipment.

Visitors viewed a solar eclipse at an observatory in Berlin in the mid-1930s.

A family set up two telescopes in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1963. The two children placed stones on the base to help steady them.

An astronomer examined equipment for an eclipse in a desert in Mauritania in June 1973. We credit the hot climate for his choice in outfit.

Indirect Light

If you see people on Monday sprinting to your local park clutching pieces of paper, or with a cardboard box of their head, they are probably planning to reflect or project images of the solar eclipse onto a surface.

Cynthia Goulakos demonstrated a safe way to view a solar eclipse , with two pieces of cardboard to create a reflection of the shadowed sun, in Lowell, Mass., in 1970.

Another popular option is to create a pinhole camera. This woman did so in Central Park in 1963 by using a paper cup with a small hole in the bottom and a twin-lens reflex camera.

Amateur astronomers viewed a partial eclipse, projected from a telescope onto a screen, from atop the Empire State Building in 1967 .

Back in Central Park, in 1970, Irving Schwartz and his wife reflected an eclipse onto a piece of paper by holding binoculars on the edge of a garbage basket.

Children in Denver in 1979 used cardboard viewing boxes and pieces of paper with small pinholes to view projections of a partial eclipse.

A crowd gathered around a basin of water dyed with dark ink, waiting for the reflection of a solar eclipse to appear, in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1995.

Staring at the Sun (or, How Not to Burn Your Retinas)

Eclipse-gazers have used different methods to protect their eyes throughout the years, some safer than others .

In 1927, women gathered at a window in a building in London to watch a total eclipse through smoked glass. This was popularized in France in the 1700s , but fell out of favor when physicians began writing papers on children whose vision was damaged.

Another trend was to use a strip of exposed photographic film, as seen below in Sydney, Australia, in 1948 and in Turkana, Kenya, in 1963. This method, which was even suggested by The Times in 1979 , has since been declared unsafe.

Solar eclipse glasses are a popular and safe way to view the event ( if you use models compliant with international safety standards ). Over the years there have been various styles, including these large hand-held options found in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1979.

Parents and children watched a partial eclipse through their eclipse glasses in Tokyo in 1981.

Slimmer, more colorful options were used in Nabusimake, Colombia, in 1998.

In France in 1999.

And in Iran and England in 1999.

And the best way to see the eclipse? With family and friends at a watch party, like this one in Isalo National Park in Madagascar in 2001.