I have just learned that May is National Hamburger Month, and has been since 1993, created by promotional wizards of the White Castle restaurant chain.
Of course, you can celebrate as you like. The most logical way to do this would be, I suppose, to eat a hamburger. You can cook or grill one at home, or you can go out for one. There must be a burger joint within walking or quick driving distance from wherever you live.
“Burgers make up 60% of all sandwiches consumed across the globe,” writes Maggie Hennessy in her first book, the colorful and congenial “Hamburger Bible.” She also informs us that, astonishingly, there are 84,000 or so places in this country dedicated to serving burgers, of all sorts — “a handheld gift for all to share.”
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Hennessy is one of this area’s most prolific freelance writers, contributing to the WBEZ/Sun-Times partnership as well as magazines and other publications.
Growing up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, she was a huge hit with her pals (especially around Halloween) since her father was an executive with the Hershey Company. She and her family (her mother a visual artist) moved to Western Springs and she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in journalism. She dove into a precarious career, but one that has allowed her write about many things, such as the business world, though she aims her talents at food and drinks and the people who make and serve them. She has worked as a critic for Timeout Chicago and spent a year getting a certificate in professional cookery from Kendall College.
This burger book came about with a call and offer from the London-based Welbeck Publishing Group. “It was flattering that they had found my writing and liked it,” she says, adding that she was given a very tight nine months to finish the book, and had to adhere to the publisher’s format.
That’s a quick and challenging deadline but she has done an admirable job.
In person, she is smart and delightful, with a quick laugh and a palpable passion for the city and its food scene. When last we talked, she and her husband were about to go out to dinner. “Pasta,” she said, “my favorite food.”
The book introduces you to 80-some burger joints, here and as far away as Dubai and Bangkok. It also provides burger history, a few recipes and its tone is informatively playful and many photos pop off its 200-some pages.
In her book, she gives thanks to the many food writers toiling for publications and gives a special shoutout to George Motz, “aka Mr. ‘Hamburger America.'”
That was nice to see. For decades, Motz has been my go-to hamburger expert. I first met him here, as he was researching and filming what would become a 2004 documentary called “Hamburger America.” At the time, he told me, “There is no other food that says ‘America’ like the burger,” and he has worked to prove that.
He crisscrossed the country, spending almost three years eating burgers and filming/interviewing the people who made them for his movie. Then came the 2018 book, “Hamburger America: A State-by-State Guide to 200 Great Burger Joints.” He hosted a Travel Channel show about burgers, co-founded and runs New York City’s Food Film Festival and in 2023 and opened his own restaurant in New York City. It is called, naturally, “Hamburger America.”
A fourth edition of his “Hamburger America” has just been published. He writes, “Let’s be clear about how difficult it is to keep a classic burger joint alive.” He makes his point by listing, in detailed fashion, some 200 places across its 452 pages, lamenting that many of his old favorites have shuttered but also giving us new discoveries — 38 to be precise.
There is a lot to enjoy and to savor in both books, especially when the authors do their best to explain why we eat so many burgers.
As Hennessy writes, “Burgers are affordable, fast, filling, adaptable and affably handheld. … On a more profound level, perhaps the burger connects us to some primordial human desire to eat fire-cooked protein and bread with our hands.”
As Motz writes, “Get out there and eat burgers that are … some of the best in America. But as you enjoy your heavenly handful of greasy goodness, take a moment to ponder the history of the place you’re eating it. It’s the reason the burger tastes so damn good.”
I am not sure how many different hamburgers I have had in my many years. But I do know where I had most of them. The place is featured on page 52 of Hennessy’s book and page 62 in Motz’s.
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It is the Billy Goat, in the business of serving a couple of million burgers during its 62 years at its main location under Michigan Avenue, and countless numbers at its handful of oases and from grocery store freezers.
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Sam Sianis, proprietor of the Billy Goat Taverns, died recently, that it evoked a memory. Amid the “cheezborger, cheezborger” uproar of a typical lunch hour, I asked Sam, “Why do you think so many people like to eat hamburgers?
He took not a second to answer, saying, “The people like them because they’re good.”
Works for me.