So my company decided to point out to everyone that the Huffington Post through my company's video contest was interesting enough to report on. For the most part their critique was kind of nit picky. I mean they had to get pretty specific to while about it. Anyway, the thing that inspired this post was how they talked about the First Cheeseburger.

It made me think about stuff. You know like where words come from. In this case the word "burger". I mean I know all about the German roots of the word. However, I stop and wonder What the Fuck is a burger? I mean how do you get that term from ground up meat? After all, you actually have to put some thought behind making one. It is not like an Apple or a Cow or a Tree. I cannot pick one up and say the name and people might catch on. No you actually have to sit down and TRY to make this. You have to get the slab of meat and grind it up. Then you have to cook it and arrange the food accordingly. I don't know... how do you get that word from cooked ground up beef?

For that matter at which point does ground up beef become a Hamburger? Is it only after it finds its way between two pieces of bread. Another question I have to wonder is can it be regular bread or does it have to specifically be the bun bread? I mean bread is bread. Yes there are small variations in the recipes... but for the most part it is bread. I guess we call cooked ground beef between square bread a "Patty Melt". Which raises another important question, is bread all that is needed?

After all, we spend so much time finding new ways to make the burger taste better. We throw lettuce, onions, tomatoes, artichokes, hot dogs, ketchup... all sorts of stuff on the burger. So does it officially become a burger when you have put all that stuff on there? I mean there are staples. Does that mean if you do not put certain things on the burger it is no longer a burger? For instance I hate tomatoes, but love ketchup :P, anyway I always take tomatoes off my burger. Yet it is hard to find a burger without tomatoes. Does that mean the burgers I prefer to eat are not burgers? Maybe they are something else... the horrid genetic freak of burgers.

I need to know where the line is. The line has to be a thin one. After all, if I can sit around and write this much crap about when cooked ground beef becomes a burger... it has to be thing. You know come to think of it... was a Hamburger always made of beef? I mean ham implies pork. Maybe some dumb ass ordered the wrong animal remains and was able to trick a bunch of unsuspecting people into eating cow. O_O For that matter maybe it was invented in India where cows are sacred. Maybe it was the evil white mans trick to get those in India to eat meat. I could totally see some guy going over there and doing something like that. Hmm... this is the question that will plague us for the rest of our lives. When is it just ground beef and when is it a hamburger.