Monday, January 15, 2007

Bite This, New Haven

News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | LOCAL NEWS | Texas lawmaker challenges hamburger history: "A bill being introduced in the Texas Legislature is having a ripple effect in New Haven, Connecticut.

The bill is touching off a new round of the burger battles involving the owners of a tiny building housing Louis' Lunch on Crown Street in New Haven. The 112-year-old restaurant claims to have invented the hamburger.

But in Texas, Rep. Betty Brown proposed a resolution declaring Athens, Texas, as the birthplace of the hamburger. The Athens Republican said that a long ago resident of the town, Fletcher Davis, had a luncheonette in the late 1880s and sold the first burgers there.

A magazine article also suggests that Davis not only created the hamburger but sold it from a booth at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904.

Ken Lassen, who is 89 and the third-generation owner of Louis' Lunch, stands by his claim. He also cites an official designation by the Library of Congress that his place gave birth to the burger.

That designation came under a resolution initiated by New Haven Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro."

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