آغاز شهرت همبرگر

The Big Mac, food historians tell us, has heroic origins. The Mongol hordes,as they galloped over the steppes, would place minced beef under theirsaddles. After a long day's pillage, they would settle down to their rare (that is, `raw') burger: boeuf tartare.The twentieth century history of favourite fast food is as American as cherry pie. The modern hamburger was, historians tell us, pioneered at concessionaire stalls,at  the 1904 St Louis World Fair. It was a brilliant innovation: time and motion technique applied to catering. The meat could be kneadedinto a pellet, flippedon thehotplate, and clapped in a bun (to keep the customer's fingers grease-free) faster than a nickel could change hands.   The name itself was mysterious. It is true that on the north German coast theyrelish their patties; they callthem Deutsches Beefsteak mitBrotchen. Hamburgers, my Hamburgfriends tell me, do not eat hamburgers. The history of the American hamburger is a triumph of 20th century merchandising. No one managed to get a trademarkon the word. Any minimum wage menial could cook hamburgers and any street vendor could peddle them. The trick was to market them better than the competition. In 1936, the Wimpy was brand leader- named after the burger-scoffingcharacter in Popeye. Bob's Big Boy chain is credited with the doubleburger and the drive-thru.But it was McDonald's, initially a hot-dog franchise, which in the 1950s under Ray Kroc brought the burger into--the modern age (wisely they decided against Big-Kroc). What McDonald's sold was, famously, less a product than a style of eating: efficient, quick, and one size for the Whole family.    The Big Mac, and its rivals, are now to America and its gastronomiccolonies what the potato was to 19th-century Ireland. Americans, it is calculated, eat on average three hamburgers a week. Some seven per cent of the American workforce, one is told, had their first job at McDonald's. What is glossed over in the image is that the hamburger, like the Irish spud, is the staplefood of poor people, particularly poor young people. Kids are chronically short of cash, in a hurry, and prone to get hungry at unsocial hours. At my preferred American drive­-thru, In-and-Out, you can get your burger, fries and shake for under three dollars, in three minutes, at three o'clock in the morning. Delicious. But even at the best outlets, youcan never be entirely certain what you're eating. For much of his early childhood, my son proudly proclaimed himself a vegetarian, while scoffing hisdaily Big Mac or McNuggets, blissfully unaware of their remote origins as meat. McDonald's and the other big franchises select their meat with scrupulous care. One is less sure about what are euphemistically(and anonymously) called ‘cheap hamburgers'. One of the most sensible and cost effective health measures our government could take would be to instruct young Britons to be intellectually curious about what they are eating. Forget GenghisKhan.It's the history of the hamburger in your hand that you need to know.