Where does the name Hamburger come from? from Turgut Can's blog

​The meaning of the word "Ham" in English is "a dish made by salting and drying the upper part of the pig's leg". So, did the hamburger get its name because it was made from pork?..

Absolutely not! The history of the hamburger dates back to the Turkish communities known as Tatars in Central Asia. At that time, the warrior Tatar horses ate raw meat. Over time, they discovered that when they put this meat under their saddles, as a result of the movements of the horses on long expeditions, this meat somehow cooked a little and became easier to chew.

Over the years, at the end of their long expeditions in the Asian steppes, they added salt, pepper and onion when they took this meat out from under the saddle, and finally the "Tatar Steak" known today emerged.

A merchant from Hamburg, Germany, saw Tatar Steak in Central Asia in the middle of the 19th century, where he went for trade purposes, and brought it to Germany and presented it as Hamburg steak. Later, a cook served this meat by frying it and called it hamburger, meaning "belonging to Hamburg".

Hamburgers leave Germany in two ways. Again in the 19th century, a physicist and food developer, Dr. J. H. Salisbury, brought the hamburger to England. Salisbury believed that for a healthy life, steak should be washed with hot water three times a day. The hamburger prepared in this way was called "Salisbury Steak" in England.

In the other way, it went to America with German immigrants in the late 19th century. The name of the meatballs made from hamburger meat was settled here as hamburger. In other words, there was no pork in the hamburger at any stage of history. When it returned to Turkey, those who did not know that its history dates back to our ancestors claimed that it did not suit our traditional taste.

By the way, let's state that in the study conducted in the USA after World War I to eliminate words of German origin from English, the name of the hamburger was also tried to be changed to "Salisbury Steak", but it did not work.