Another installment of "Americans are so weird"

[gemfyre]

It's weird to see the words "sausage" and "hamburger" used to describe the mince sausages and hamburgers are made out of. It's not a sausage until the mince is squeezed into a skin and made into long... sausages. It's not a hamburger until it's made into a patty for use in... hamburgers.

It's also weird that hamburgers are made of beef 99% of the time and not ham at all, but that's another story.

Comments

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

The type of mince is different though - sausages have a finer type of mince and the hamburger stuff is chunkier... wonder if they have any legislated meat content limits. Apparently we don't in Australia so a sausage can be 90% sawdust. :P

[morningglorymlp.livejournal.com]

Sausage isn't generally used to describe the mince. A when people use the term sausage, it's used as you described. I've never heard it used to describe the mince before 'packaging' before.

And you're right about it not being "a" hamburger until it's a patty. However hamburger is the mince used to make "a" hamburger or hamburgers. "Hamburger" is both plural and singular depending on how you use it.

I have no idea why it's called hamburger when theres no pig in it either, but I've often wondered.

Oh, and we don't use the term mince. If it's not beef, anad it's in the form of mince, then it's ground. Like ground turkey. Make sense?

[abinormal.livejournal.com]

I think, but am not positive, that the term "hamburger" refers to a city that the concept came out of.

[morningglorymlp.livejournal.com]

Hamburg, Germany perhaps?

[morningglorymlp.livejournal.com]

Just did a quick Google and it appears that it is related to Hamburg, Germany.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HamburgerHistory.htm