History of the American Cheeseburger

Meg 05 September 2012 0

Today in our American history lesson, I had prepared what I thought would be an interesting, fun and educational lesson on American slaves – their traditions and slave culture. We did role playing, reading and word definitions and talked about what life was like for slaves in South Carolina and Georgia during the colonial times. It seemed to go well and they remembered our first lesson on the history of slavery in the USA and the slave trade in Bristol UK and seemed interested in learning about the life of a slave. However, judging by their answers at the end of the lesson when I asked my children what they wanted to focus on and learn during the next lesson, they had clearly been bored senseless!

My British children want to learn about the history of the… American cheeseburger (of all things!) and how American fast food became so popular and took over the world and made everyone in America fat. Well. That just about had me sobbing into my cup of very British tea. I think I need to inject some excitement into these American history lessons if I’m going to really teach them something. Although, on second thought, there is some educational value in learning about the history of the American cheesburger as it apparently invovled lots of trial and error during different centuries and will give me the opportunity to introduce a few of the American States including New York and of course American cooking.

I might point out that this request was from my son. My daughter wants to learn about famous American painters. Very sensible and a lesson I will very much enjoy preparing and teaching.

For now, I leave you with a fascinating video on how to make a ‘Juicy Lucy Cheese Burger’. It is amazing how many different types of burgers and cheeseburgers there are in the States and the care and craft that goes into creating them. Suffice to say, Americans take their burgers VERY seriously and clearly burger making can be a valuable art form. After watching this, even I (a strict vegetarian) wanted to make this burger for my husband to enjoy!