Chew On This #1

Chew On This, by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, is a book with an in-depth look at fast food's history, the evolving process of fast food production, and its impacts on our daily life. It contains many interesting and little known facts. For example, I was surprised to learn from this book that the hamburger was invented by a fifteen year old boy named Charlie Nagreen.

Charlie was selling meatballs at a county fair in 1885 to make some extra money. However, the meatballs were difficult to eat while walking. Seeing this, Charlie flattened the meatballs and put them between two slices of bread, thus creating the first hamburger. However, many people from the early 1900's believed that the ground beef used to make hamburgers was made from unfresh or low quality meat. This made hamburgers very unpopular during that period of time. It was considered a food for the poor. In 1925, when New Yorkers were asked what their favorite food was, hamburgers were nineteenth. Hamburgers even lost to cow tongue and spinach! However, a man named Walt Anderson loved hamburgers and set out to change the idea that hamburgers were unhealthy. He started a small restaurant devoted to selling hamburgers. He grilled the burgers right in front of his customers so that they could see that the meat was fresh and the equipment was clean. With the success of his first restaurant, he opened more restaurants in the shape of white medieval forts and named them White Castles. This name suggested that the food was pure and fresh. He even sponsored an unusual experiment. For ten days, a medical student at the University of Minnesota ate nothing but White Castle hamburgers and water. At the end of ten days, the student seemed quite healthy. From then on, people viewed hamburgers in a new way. It was no longer called a food for the poor, and workingmen finally could afford to eat at a restaurant.

However, White Castles didn't attract many women or children. Walt Anderson didn't turn hamburgers into America's favorite fast food. Richard and Maurice McDonald, with help from a traveling salesman who had failed at everything for years, changed history with a new concept of restaurants that marked the beginning of the era of modern fast food.