The etymology of a word often leads to more questions than answers. Take “hamburger,” for example. It would be reasonable to assume that ham refers to either a cut of pork or a person’s name, and that burger means something eatable parked between two pieces of bread. But, no. Burg in fact means “castle” in German, and ham, from the Old High German hamma, refers to a bend in a river or an enclosed area of pastureland. Hmmm. Oh, and it can also be attributed to the city of origin, which is Hamburg, Germany.
But we at The Santa Barbara Independent don’t care about all that fancy word-origin stuff as much as we want to know about Santa Barbara restaurants that offer mouthwatering burgers of the beef, poultry, and vegetarian variety. And of course we found a little bit of fascinating Santa Barbara burger history, such as how The Habit came to be, the (possibly true) story of how McDonald’s got its golden arches, and where to get a tasty plant- and/or grain-based patty. Read on …