Just curious.. Why is hamburger called hamburger though it contains no ham?

According to legend, the British Earl of Hamburger put a hunk of beef between two slices of bread to avoid getting his hands all greasy. Thus the hamburger was born.

this bit of trivia comes to us from the Minnesota Beef Council: 76. Q. How did the Hamburger get its name? a) from the Baltic provinces of Russia in the Middle Ages where rowdy, nomadic tribes of Tartary developed a fondness for raw beef, known today as steak Tartar. b) from the German trading partners of the Tartars who lived in Hamburg; they developed a taste for raw beef fried with onions, called Hamburg Steak. c) from German immigrants who brought "Hamburg Steak" to the US in the 1700s and 1800s. A. All of the above.

During a trip to Asia in the early 1800s, a German merchant - it is said - noticed that the nomadic Tartars softened their meat by keeping it under their saddles. The motion of the horse pounded the meat to bits. The Tartars would then scrape it together and season it for eating. The idea of pounded beef found its way back to the merchant's home town of Hamburg where cooks broiled the meat and referred to it as it as Hamburg meat. German immigrants introduced the recipe to the US. The term "hamburger" is believed to have appeared in 1834 on the menu from Delmonico's restaurant in New York but there is no surviving recipe for the meal. The first mention in print of "Hamburg steak" was made in 1884 in the Boston Evening Journal. The honour of producing the first proper hamburger goes to Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, WI. In 1885 Nagreen introduced the American hamburger at the Outgamie County Fair in Seymour. (Seymour is recognised as the hamburger capital of the world.) However, there is another claim to that throne. There is an account of Frank and Charles Menches who, also in 1885, went to the Hamburg, New York county fair to prepare their famous pork sausage sandwiches. But since the local meat market was out of pork sausage, they used ground beef instead. Alas, another hamburger. The first account of serving ground meat patties on buns - taking on the look of the hamburger as we know it today - took place in 1904 at the St. Louis World Fair. But it was many years later, in 1921, that an enterprising cook from Wichita, Kansas, Walt Anderson, introduced the concept of the hamburger restaurant. He convinced financier Billy Ingram to invest $700 to create The White Castle hamburger chain. It was an instant success. The rest of the history, we might say, belongs to McDonald's. And, no, a hamburger does not have any ham in it. Well, it's not supposed to. Hamburger meat usually is made of 70-80% beef, and fat and spices.

One of the great mysteries of life;) Instead of saying where's the beef, we should ask, "where's the ham?"Actually, I think it is named for the city Hamburg in Germany. Just like a Frankfurter contains no brother Frank in them - but come from Frankfurt Germany. Hotdog has no dog, or at least we hope not!

i also wonder that thing before, good that you remind me of this. i can see the answer from other mylot members.. hope you find the right one..