Who cares where the burger was born?

There’s been a whole lot of hooey lately about where the burger was born. On one side, you have Louis' Lunch of New Haven, who’s gone so far as to get the Library of Congress to validate its burger boast. On the other side, you have State Rep. Betty Brown of Texas arguing that the first burger was served in Athens, TX. She’s even proposed a state bill to codify this claim.

Well, who cares? To me, it’s all pure nonsense made in the name of pride. The real question is where would you rather eat a burger today? Texas or Connecticut? I’m not saying that there aren’t good burgers in Connecticut, but check out this old New York Times article by William Grimes. In it, he says that burgers are to Texas as croissants are to France. “It's a symbol, a necessity and a triumph, a part of the cultural patrimony so tightly woven into the fabric of Texas life that Texans themselves do not even remark on it until they are presented with the gray-tinged, underfurnished, suspiciously geometric hamburger that the rest of America lives with.”

Connecticut can have its provenance, but let Texas have its “cultural patrimony.” Face it, no one is ever really going to know the exact moment and place the burger was invented. So let’s just think about where we’d want to eat a good burger today. I know where I'm going, and it's not New Haven.