Recipes from a Tasteless Machine

No holiday is more American than Independence Day, though most of us refer to it as the Fourth of July.  It is the reddest, whitest and bluest day of the calendar in the United States.  For decades it was a day of patriotic pride for this nation and its accomplishments, though in recent years many Americans have become more focused on the flaws of our founders and the shortcomings of our democratic republic than the miracle of its birth. 

Initially we thought all Americans could put aside their politics, and all agree upon some favorite Fourth of July treats—hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream.  On the surface, that might have been possible, but sub rosa we’re not certain that is a realistic expectation in these highly politicized times.  After all, animal activists abhor meats and the people who consume them.  Climate activists blame livestock, especially cattle, for the so-called climate crisis.  Dietary activists push their agendas to change our eating habits eliminating foods like ice cream, which not only uses milk from cows and eggs from chickens but also uses sugar with its own environmental destructiveness.  Yes, a lot of self-appointed experts want to wring the flavor, variety and fun out of our diets, even when it deprives senile old men of their ice cream cones.  

But this nation wasn’t founded by men and women afraid to take a stand, so we are standing up for hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream.  Call them junk food if you must, but no food is junk when you’re hungry or when you want to celebrate America and its heritage.

As you know, the Fourth of July holiday commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776.  Seven years of war follow before the Thirteen Colonies prevailed and claimed their independence from King George III and his arbitrary rule.

As the nation grew in population and expanded in size, Independence Day came to include parades and fireworks; barbecues and picnics; concerts and baseball games; and even family reunions and, unfortunately, political speeches! 

While the heritage of Independence Day is well-documented, the history of hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream is much murkier with obscure roots and countervailing claims or accounts of their origins.  No sane person, however, has ever questioned their tastiness.

Take the hamburger, for instance.  A handful of accounts identify the hamburger as a European creation, most commonly in Hamburg, Germany.  But since we are celebrating the Fourth of July, we’ll focus on the hamburger’s American genesis, which is variously ascribed to New Haven, Connecticut; New York City/Hamburg, New York; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Seymour, Wisconsin; and Athens, Texas.  

Our favorite origin story in no way influenced by our Texas residence is of Fletcher Davis, who ran a lunch counter in Athens, Texas, and in the early to mid-1880s served a ground beef patty with mustard and a slice of onion between two slices of bread with a pickle on the side.  This culinary creation of “Old Dave,” as he was called, got wide public exposure when he and his wife served the burger at a sandwich stand at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, best remembered today as the St. Louis World’s Fair.  A 1904 photograph of “Old Dave’s Hamburger Stand” provides some confirmation of that account as originally documented by Texas historian Frank X. Tolbert.

While the word “frankfurter” originated in Frankfurt, Germany, where pork sausages similar to today’s wieners were first created, questions remain about who first put the encased meat on a bun in the United States.  In 1867 Coney Island pieman Charles Feltman first sold boiled sausages on a bun from a vendor cart.  Polo Grounds food vendor Harry M. Stevens claimed credit in 1901 for putting sausages in rolls at baseball games after he ran out of the waxed paper he had used as a holder.  Similar necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention stories emerged from the 1893 World Columbian Exposition and the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.  Regardless of the origin, today the third Wednesday of July each year is designated National Hot Dog Day in the United States.

Oddly enough accounts of ice cream, the most fragile of the Independence Day treats, extend all the way back to Persia around 550 B.C., with descriptions of ice cream-like foods.  The origin of ice cream in America is foggy with some claims that Thomas Jefferson introduced it to the country and even had an 18-step recipe for a frozen concoction.  New York City confectioner shops offered ice creams during colonial times.  In addition to Jefferson founding fathers George Washington and Ben Franklin regularly ate and served the frozen treat.  First Lady Dolley Madison in 1813 served ice cream at her husband’s Inaugural Ball as the nation’s fourth president.  

Ice cream in America got a homemade boost in the 1840s by inventing a hand-cranked ice cream freezer perfect for making homemade ice cream.  As a boy growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Preston remembers homemade ice cream in crank freezers being a standard at Lewis family reunions.  One surprising thing about working with ChatGPT on the ice cream recipes is that the chatbot did not seem to understand the concept of a crank freezer.

Nonetheless, these are some recipes to help you stand up and celebrate America during a red-white-and blue Fourth of July.