Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,961

This is the grave of Louis Lassen.

Born in 1865, Ludvig Lassen came from Schleswig, which was part of the land Denmark lost to the Prussians in 1864 that helped lead to a united Germany, which sure has been beneficial to humankind. By 1881, he was already in New Haven, Connecticut peddling food. He was in Manhattan for a bit too and married Sophia there in 1889. Originally, he was a butter and eggs man and slowly he added to that, selling lunch items.

This leads us to the claim that makes Lassen famous–that he invented the hamburger. Supposedly, in 1900, a businessman came to his cart in New Haven, and was in a hurry. He asked for some meat between two slices of bread. Lassen already sold a lot of chopped steak so he did so and the hamburger was born.

I’m always pretty skeptical of these kinds of stories. I mean, while I suppose someone was the first person to put some beef between two slices of bread, I feel like it was probably 1,000 people, not one. But why not Lassen if anyone. Lassen certainly was able to advertise this. His “burger” as he called it–and maybe he did invent the name–became a core part of his menu. The business grew and he opened a brick and mortar shop in 1917. It exists today in New Haven, though in a different location as urban renewal destroyed so much of that city. But they moved it instead of just opening in a new building. That was in the 70s. Evidently, the restaurant still uses the original burners that were manufactured all the way back in 1898. It was not until long after Louis’ death, when his descendants ran it, that the joint added cheese.

But back to the dubious claims of this being the first burger. Traditionally, the story is that someone had it at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, loved it, reported on it, and it became a huge thing. Well, I have no idea if this 1904 story has anything to do with someone who learned the idea from Lassen. It probably doesn’t. It just goes to show that lots of people were doing this at the time and it happened to take off nationally based on one story, or at least one story created the myth around it. There are plenty of other progenitors of the hamburger as well, both in the U.S. and Germany, who knows. But don’t let it fool you–this can get the attention of Congress. No, literally. Rosa DeLauro, who still represents her district in Connecticut despite being 123 years old, got the Library of Congress to officially recognize Lassen as the inventor of the hamburger in 2000. Glad we are focusing on what really matters here.

One other thing about Lassen and his heirs: they loathe ketchup. For this alone, I am giving them credit for creating a proper hamburger anyway. There is a NO KETCHUP sign in the restaurants. Those who ask for ketchup or are caught sneaking their ketchup into the restaurant are kicked out. They are very aggressive about this and will tell you to go to hell if you ask them to add ketchup or overcook the meat. And God bless them for it. This is the kind of restaurant experience I am asking for. The customer is not always right. The customer is a moron.

Speaking of which, I happened to be walking by the Canadian embassy in Washington the other day and they had these signs up with different products to show passers-by how both countries are better when they trade together, a point falling of deaf ears in this country of idiots who elect Trump and put ketchup on burgers. And here was the burger sign:

Leave it to Ohio to fuck up a burger! What a worthless state.

Lassen died in 1935, at the age of 69. Probably too many burgers.

Louis Lassen is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut.

If you would like this series to visit other figures from our hamburger history, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Charles Nagreen is in Appleton, Wisconsin and Fletcher Davis is in Athens, Texas. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.