Of burgers, burglars and Alfred E. Neuman
You know, by now, of Andrew Hammond, a.k.a. the Hamburglar, and his wondrous run as call-up goalie on an Ottawa Senators team long due a goofy, happy change-up.
You saw him — if not in the moment, then in the thousand tweeted photos — scoop up the burger tossed on the ice by, whom? A grateful fan? Senators mascot Spartacat? The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association?
And you’ve heard, no doubt, that a win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday would tie Frank “Mr. Zero” Brimsek’s 1939 record of allowing two or fewer goals in his first 12 games in the National Hockey League.
But there’s sooooo much more to know about hamburgers and Hamburglars (Versions 1 and 2). Here’s just a taste:
Q Why it’s called a hamburger, when it doesn’t — does it? — contain ham?
A Numerous civilizations have chopped up meat and formed it into patties, but Genghis Khan and his Mongol posse are believed to be the fathers of the burger as we know it. According to Linda Stradley’s exhaustive History and Legends of Hamburgers at whatscookingamerica.net, the raw “steak tartare” that Khan’s Golden Horde brought to Russia was subsequently carried by European sailors back to ports including, yes, Germany’s Hamburg. It evolved into Hamburg steak — cooked beef and spices, often stretched with bread crumbs and onions — and spread even to Seymour, Wisc., where Charles Nagreen is claimed to have been the first to offer it between bread slices.
Q When is National Hamburger Month?
A It’s May, and has been since 1993, but apparently only in the United States, since we can find no mention of its observation elsewhere.
Q How many burgers has McDonalds served?
A White Castle was the first hamburger chain, but McDonald’s became synonymous with burgers through the ingenious running count (“over 100 million served,” “over 200 million ...”) under its golden arches. It replaced the counter in 1994 with an evergreen “Billions and Billions Served.” We thought of asking for an update but realized that any number supplied would be too imprecise for such a scientific report.
Q Number of words devoted to the Hamburglar at Wikipedia:
A A week ago, we would have estimated 3,000. But the individual entry on the McDonald’s advertising character appears to have disappeared from the online encyclopedia, leaving only a sanitized, 260-word paragraph on the McDonaldland page. Shame, that, as the original entry provided a rather noirish discussion of the Hamburglar’s physical and emotional evolution.
Q. The Alfred E. Neumanconnection?
A Play-by-play announcers, having at this point run out of obscure statistics (“the Panthers have allowed the most secondperiod goals in “r” months”), regale us repeatedly with the story of Hammond earning his nickname — bestowed by teammate Wade Finegan, popularized by student broadcaster Everett Fitzhugh — as a rookie goaltender “stealing” games for Bowling Green State University. But they seemed perplexed by the resemblance of the Hamburglar cartoon image on Hammond’s mask to Mad magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman. The answer, as provided by In Goal Magazine: Artist Jason Bartziokas, who painted Hammond’s Pro’s Choice mask to the goaltender’s specifications, decided to inject some Neuman references “to give it a little life.”
Q How did the burger thrown on the Canadian Tire Centre ice stay intact?
A Theories abound as to why meat and bun did not go in different directions. Most likely explanation, as supported by Hammond’s own “I didn’t eat it, it was kind of cold”: It was brought in frozen, and like most things this winter except one hot goalie, still hadn’t thawed out.