“There are many people of German descent in St. Louis. I think these St. Louis Germans, or maybe only one of them, can be blamed for misnaming the magnificent Texas culinary creation - which deserves more a precise and flattering title.
“In St. Louis I’ve heard from person, whose parents or grandparents came from the southern regions of Germany, say that northern Germans in the city of Hamburg were much given to eating ground meat, even in the distant past. Other Germans disapproved of the Hamburg ground meat freaks, especially the Hamburg types who liked raw ground meat. So the St. Louis Germans may have named the sandwich hamburger as a derisive gesture toward the barbaric, ground-meat gobblers in the city of Hamburg. It is certain that the people of Hamburg never got around to making a ground-meat sandwich. If they did it never caught on over there.”