10 Things You Didn't Know About Burgers

By Molly Durham

Burgers are our country’s quintessential craving. Popularized during the fast food boom, they’re now ubiquitous, topped with everything from peanut butter to onion rings. Throughout their history, they’ve gone through changes including going gourmet and going to extremes. There seems to be a celebration of all things burger no matter where you go, and here are 10 burger facts that might surprise you:

1. Americans purchase about 50 billion burgers per year.

2. The hamburger supposedly gets its name from Hamburg, Germany. A cut of beef called the Hamburg steak eventually evolved into what we now consider hamburgers.

3. One of the most expensive hamburgers resides at Fleur in Las Vegas, with a whopping $5,000 price tag. The Fleur Burger 5000 is a massive wagyu beef patty with foie gras and black truffle, and comes with a bottle of wine which goes for $2,500 itself. They only serve about six of them a year. 

4. During WWII, beef shortages produced what some called “hamburger riots.”

5. Hamburgers were referred to as “liberty sandwiches” during WWI, because of the word’s German roots. 

6. McDonald's sold its first 100 million burgers by 1958, and its 100 billionth by 1993.

7. May is National Hamburger Month.

8. According to a University of North Carolina study, the average hamburger weighs 1.3 ounces more (that’s 23 percent larger) today than in 1977. 

9. The Big Mac was introduced in 1968. The price was 49 cents.

10. The biggest hamburger ever served weighed 8,266 lbs. It was cooked in 2001 at the Burger Fest in Seymour, Wisconsin. The Hamburger Hall of Fame is also in Seymour, paying tribute to hamburger inventor Charles Nagreen.

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