One hundred years ago, a teenager named Lionel Sternberger dropped a blanket of American cheese over a hamburger at his father’s sandwich shop in Pasadena, California, creating the first cheeseburger.
The story may be as flimsy as a Kraft single, but it attests to the decades of tinkering and reinvention that have made the burger a lasting, ever-evolving American genre, like jazz or the Hollywood movie.
Today, burgers can come packed with the cultural ingredients that make the country what it is: regional tradition and immigrant inspiration, deep history and blue-sky creativity, plantains and gochujang and even more of that cheese.
Here are variations that reflect the moment — and the limitless things a great burger can be.
The Burger Is ... Steadfast
Cheeseburger at Sun Cattle Co.
The signature dish at Sun Cattle is not exactly innovative. It’s a meticulous recreation of the fried-onion burger made famous in the diners of El Reno, about 30 miles west. Equal parts of ground beef and sliced onion are piled onto a griddle and cooked hard, creating a trinity of different onion flavors: slightly burnt, a little caramelized and almost raw — all enveloped by the funk of beef fat. American cheese is melted on top, with a stack of pickles to finish. It’s the kind of genius technique that wasn’t worth messing with, said the chef, Brad Ackerman. He uses beef from a nearby ranch run by one of Sun Cattle’s owners, Matt Parsons. Ackerman has no plans to change the menu seasonally or come up with non-burger innovations. “The heart of the American soul is burgers,” he said.
The Burger Is ... a Taco
Campechana at Cuantas Hamburguesas
Tacos and hamburgers are more alike than they are different. At least, that’s what Beto Robledo, the owner of this food truck and its sibling, Cuantos Tacos, has always thought. Both foods, he points out, are portable, casual dishes that speak to life’s simple pleasures. So why not combine them? He opened the hamburger truck in 2023, four years after the taqueria, and its signature offering is the Campechana. The burger has longaniza, diced onions, cilantro, chimichurri mayo and a beef patty splashed with the same Maggi sauce he uses to season his carne asada. A mozzarella-crusted corn tortilla known as a costra takes the place of a cheese slice. It’s as if someone inserted a quesadilla into a burger, and it’s marvelous.
The Burger Is ... an Ambassador
Lao Burger at Ox Burger
When Khampaeng Panyathong first devised his Lao burger, it was as a bonus dish using ingredients prepped for his restaurant’s salad station. He grabbed jeow bong — an aromatic, labor-intensive dip typically served with sticky rice — and thinned it into an aioli. Instead of sliced tomato, he smeared tomato jeow between two slices of provolone. He layered patties with the kitchen’s cured pork belly and swapped in taro stems for lettuce, stacking it all in a glossy pub bun.
It was a burger absolutely crammed full of Lao ingredients, and for many diners visiting his restaurant Taurus Ox, it was also their first experience of Lao flavors. “They saw all these words, these unfamiliar words,” said Panyathong, “but the dish was so familiar.” It was also delicious, which kept customers coming back to try the chunky Lao sausage and the papaya salad made with unfiltered fish sauce. In 2023, Panyathong opened Ox Burger, a restaurant devoted to the Lao burger, which has doubled as an irresistible culinary ambassador.
The Burger Is ... Vegetarian (and Not Boring)
Made in Lagos Burger at Akara House
Working as an Instacart shopper at the height of the pandemic, Funso Akinya noticed that people kept buying plant-based burgers from companies like Impossible Foods. So he bought one to try. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is very terrible,’” he recalled. Surely, he thought, he could make a better vegetarian burger. He found his solution in akara, a Nigerian fritter made of peeled, mashed beans seasoned with plenty of fresh herbs, garlic and onion, and deep-fried until the outside is lightly crunchy and the interior is soft and lush.
Akinya is well-acquainted with Americans’ love of burgers — his first job when he immigrated 24 years ago was as a McDonald’s cashier. Last year, he opened a Nigerian veggie-burger joint, Akara House, where the most exciting item is the Made in Lagos burger, which pairs the akara patty with two fried plantains spiced with a peanutty suya seasoning.
The sweet-spicy plantains and the herby beans make a remarkably harmonious duo. “I think this is the only way to have people like our food,” Akinya said. “By turning it into the burger.” - TNYT
Text by:
Priya Krishna
The writer is a reporter and video host for TNYT
Tejal Rao
The writer is a critic at large for the Food section at TNYT
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