The Roman Hamburger That Wasn’t

You can add the Roman hamburger myth to the list of hamburger origin untruths outlined in a previous column (see “Top Ten Myths About The Origin of the Hamburger,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, May 26, 2022). What better day to address this than today?

Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer cookout season. Fittingly, National Hamburger Day falls on May 28, right in the middle of both National Hamburger Month and National Beef Month.

Which explains why hamburger stories suddenly begin appearing everywhere this time of year. Among the most persistent is the claim that the Romans invented the hamburger nearly fifteen centuries before the Menches Brothers arrived at the Erie County Fair.

The Real Roman “Hamburger” Recipe

For the last decade or so, the “Roman Hamburger” has become one of the most widely repeated hamburger stories in the media. Since the story appears to have originated in Britain, my best guess is that this “newfound” Roman hamburger discovery began as a publicity stunt tied to a local event. (This is similar to the way the myth of the St. Louis World’s Fair hamburger origin myth came about as a result of a 1948 publicity stunt in Chicago.)

It’s not like this Roman recipe has been a secret. Historians have known about the recipe for more than fifteen centuries. The collection of recipes may have first appeared in the late 4th–early 5th century AD. However, the book names the historical figure Marcus Gavius Apicius, a wealthy Roman gourmand who lived during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 AD). This attribution may have been more honorific than a sign of true authorship.

Titled “Apicius, De Re Coquinaria” (or De Re Culinaria), we find the recipe for the oft-referenced “Roman Hamburger” as the seventh recipe in Book II. It’s labeled “Isicia omentata,” which translates to “Minced meat patties wrapped in caul fat.” For those Latin aficionados, the actual text of Recipe 7 reads:

“Isicia omentata: pulpam concisam teres cum medulla siliginei in vino infusi. piper, liquamen, si velis, et bacam myrtam extenteratam simul conteres. pusilla isicia formabis, intus nucleis et pipere positis. involuta omento subassabis cum caroeno.”

For those who don’t remember their high school Latin, this translates to (according to Google Gemini):

“Isicia omentata: Pound minced lean meat with the crumb of fine white bread soaked in wine. Grind together pepper, fish sauce (liquamen) if you wish, and a myrtle berry with the seeds removed. Shape small patties, placing pine nuts and whole peppercorns inside. Wrap them in caul fat and lightly grill/roast them with caroenum (reduced sweet wine).”

Why The Roman Hamburger Was Not A Hamburger

There’s a good reason why Isicia Omentata is often referred to as a hamburger. Apicius treats isicia as what today we would call a “molded patty.” These patties can be made from anything spanning from seafood to offal (organs/entrails) to muscle meat to root vegetables.

Notice what’s missing from the Isicia Omentata recipe.

“Pulpa” refers to “lean meat.” Oddly, the recipe doesn’t specify which meat it’s referring to. For clues, we need to look at the previous six recipes in Book II, as well as the context provided throughout Apicius.

Book II contains related recipes. Think a variation on a theme. In other words, Recipe 7 isn’t standing alone. Apicius grouped it with six similar patty recipes, giving us clues about the ingredients he likely had in mind.

The first three feature fish as the main component. The middle two recipes directly name “pork-liver” and “brains” as the preferred meat. The remaining recipes mention only “lean meat.” Of note, only recipes four and six specifically instruct the cook to destring the sinuous ingredients (pork liver in Recipe 4 and artichoke in Recipe 6).

There is no mention of beef in any of these recipes. In fact, there is very little mention of beef in Apicius. The recipes contain peacock, pheasant, rabbit, chicken, and pork, but almost no beef.

Why?

Because the Romans viewed cattle as machines. They plowed fields, moved carts, removed stumps, and performed almost any other muscular activity demanded of them. Would the Romans eat them? Only rarely, and that was if they were too old to work. And even then, these cows weren’t bred for meat.

They apparently had no problem sacrificing cattle. But eat them? Would a farmer eat his tractor?

Besides, these farm animals were sinewy and rough. If Apicius had intended to include beef in Recipe 7, it would have made a point of instructing the reader to de-string the meat.

On the other hand, in Roman times, “butcher meat” usually meant pork. While they ate chicken and lamb, pork was the undisputed king of Roman cuisine. They treated raising pigs as an art form. If a Roman recipe didn’t specify the animal, Roman cooks likely assumed pork.

Oh, one more thing. Isicia Omentata wasn’t served on a bun. As the title suggests, it was enveloped in caul fat. And maybe wrapped in leafy vegetables, making it more akin to pigs-in-a-blanket than a hamburger.

How The Roman Hamburger Connects To The Erie County Fair

And herein lies the irony of the “Roman Hamburger” myth. Research conducted for Hamburger Dreams indicates that on September 18, 1885, Charles and Frank Menches sold the first “hamburg sandwich” at the Erie County Fair in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg (get it?).

What prompted these Ohio brothers to press ground beef into a patty and serve it in a bread sandwich?

Early in the morning, the young men realized they had sold out of their most popular product – a pork sausage patty sandwich. When the local butcher refused to kill a pig just to sell Frank ten pounds of pork, the younger brother was stymied. The butcher, perhaps feeling a bit guilty, convinced Frank to try ground beef instead.

And thus begins the history of the hamburger.

Alas, if only ancient Rome had run out of pigs. Then they might have really created the Roman hamburger.