From Beef Country To Hamburger Dreams

Beef Country lay far beyond the horizon behind us, but as we progressed through the Crossroads of America, hamburger dreams filled our heads. We thought it was just a craving for food. But it was more than that. It was much like the hunger of the hometown fans who crowded the bar under the massive television screen in the spacious hotel lobby, where we ate a late dinner.

We arrived at the Indianapolis Marriott East for our concluding night of vacation. Too tired to find a restaurant, we settled for the meager menu offered by the hotel itself. Only one other family made the same choice. For them, food was secondary. They, like the dozens of others, had their eyes glued to the TV. It was the last game of the NBA Finals. The hometown fans watched their beloved Indiana Pacers lose to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

It was a bitter loss. The Pacers, after winning three ABA titles in the early 1970s, have yet to win an NBA Finals title. In a way, Indiana fans have a hunger similar to that of Buffalo Bills fans. Like the Pacers, the Bills remain winless in Super Bowls, though they did win back-to-back AFL championships.

We’ve seen this same regional pride across America. In Beef Country, you might call it “cowboy grit,” but it’s better known as “resilience.” It’s the ability to persist despite loss and move forward.

For us, as we embarked on the journey home, moving forward meant going back. We had long left the heart of Beef Country and its symbolism of American muscle in the form of cattle and steak. Ahead of us, though, was not the beef itself, but the hamburger dream that transforms it.

Driving east feels different. Far from the endless prairie of Kansas, the landscapes close in as the towns and houses multiply. Though the physical horizons shrink, the mind flows in limitless thought. On the interstate here in Indiana—aptly nicknamed the “Crossroads of America”—the journey shifts seamlessly from one of discovery to reflection.

Indeed, in looking backward and forward at once, the Hoosier State has become a crossroads of memory and meaning. It’s also where the persistent images of the boundless plains tug hardest. You feel torn, much like the American spirit. You’re caught between the urge to stay in the wild (despite its risks and uncertainties) and the need to return home (with all its structure and meaning).

Ironically, the confusion of the West really defines us. From the carved permanence of Mount Rushmore (patriotism and pride)to the unyielding promotion of Wall Drug (consumerism and nostalgia) to the naked nature of the Badlands (raw and unforgiving), the Beef Country offers a glimpse at all the faces of America.

In a sense, this portion of our trip, although not stated in the itinerary, has become less about the scenery and more about the destination. Not a physical one, but a destination of the mind.

Or maybe it’s merely Midwest humility overcoming the echoes of Yellowstone’s grandeur.

But I do know this for sure: the road from Beef Country has pushed us toward satisfying one final hunger.

The road from Indianapolis takes us through Akron, Ohio. There, we stop at Menches Brothers Restaurant and order a hamburger. Not merely any hamburger. But the original hamburger. It was a fitting bookend to Portillo’s hot dog in Chicago.

You see, nearly 140 years ago, brothers Charles and Frank Menches sold the first hamburger. And the family still has the tasty recipe. It’s all in my book Hamburger Dreams (well, everything except the recipe). That’s the very hamburger we ordered that day.

The hamburger has come to symbolize America. Therefore, Hamburger Dreams (both the book and the metaphor) reflects the American Dream. The burger is a figurative taste of America’s ability to innovate, create, and succeed regardless of the obstacles nature places before it.

In the hands of the Menches brothers, the cow became more than sustenance. It morphed into something entirely new—portable, democratic, and distinctly American. Beef Country to Hamburger Dreams. Raw beef (earthbound, rugged, untamed) transformed into a crafted hamburger (upward, enduring, accessible to all). This shift reshaped our food and our culture, influencing how we eat, celebrate, and carry the spirit of adventure into our daily meals.

The hamburger, like the vibrant colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring, recast simple, familiar ingredients into a greater, layered beauty. A whole far exceeding the sum of its actual parts.

If St. Louis quenched our thirst, Akron sated our hunger. But there would be one more memory trigger on our journey.

About an hour away from home, we passed by the big blue water tower on the Thruway. It’s in the shape of a hamburger. It’s also in the town of Hamburg, NY—the home of the Erie County Fair. It was here on Friday, September 18, 1885, that the Menches Brothers first sold their invention to the public. It wasn’t simply invented in its namesake town; it was unveiled to the world there.

In this small town and at this large county fair (at the time it was bigger than the New York State Fair), Midwest cleverness forged frontier muscle in the American dream on a bun. (OK, not really a bun, but a V-shaped wedge cut from a loaf of bread.)

What better way to reflect America’s genius than by turning cattle into comfort food? From Beef Country to Hamburger Dreams. It’s not unlike the way Katharine Lee Bates transmuted the unfettered view of Colorado’s sky from the top of Pikes Peak into “America the Beautiful.”

If Beef Country represents raw potential, Hamburger Dreams represents the forged cultural destiny we all share. It only follows, then, that home is the place where stories turn experience into a memory. (Or at least the place where I compile all these events into a weekly column.)

The West awed us and provided the raw materials. The Midwest was home to genius, and that imagination presented a crossroads between raw materials and finished products. Western New York, as the origin of the hamburger, may be seen as destiny. Not only our personal fate, but one we can share with all mankind.

Such is the American spirit. We see it everywhere. It’s the freedom of buffalo roaming. It’s the resilience and beauty of the Moulton Barn at sunrise. But it’s also the consequences of bravado’s risk, as experienced by William and Sallie Skinner, a half-mile from the summit of Pikes Peak. Paradoxically, it’s the tug-of-war embodied in the St. Louis Arch, which is at once the Gate to the West and the Exit from the East.

America isn’t merely Beef Country or Hamburger Dreams. It’s the restless act of shaping raw resources into shared purpose, just as this journey turned miles into experiences. It’s less about where we’ve been or where we’re going and more about the act of turning memories into meaning—just as beef became hamburger.

Beef Country may fuel the body, but it’s Hamburger Dreams that feed the soul.