Selling ’em by the Sack: White Castle and the Creation of American Food

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Description

In the wake of World War I, the hamburger was once still regarded as a disreputable and undesirable food. Yet by 1930 Americans in each corner of the country accepted the hamburger as a mainstream meal and sooner or later made it a staple of their diet. The quintessential “American” food, hamburgers have by now spread to almost each country and culture on the earth. But how did this fast food icon come to occupy so quickly this type of singular role in American mass culture?

In Selling ‘em By the Sack, David Gerard Hogan traces the history of the hamburger’s rise as a distinctive American culinary and ethnic symbol through the prism of one of its earliest promoters. The first to market both the hamburger and the “to go” carry-out style to American consumers, White Castle quickly established itself as a cornerstone of the fast food industry. Its founder, Billy Ingram, shrewdly marketed his hamburgers in large quantities at five cents a piece, telling his customers to “Buy’em by the Sack.”

The years following World War II saw the upward push of great franchised chains such as McDonald’s, which challenged and in the long run overshadowed the company that Billy Ingram founded. Yet White Castle stands as a charismatic pioneer in one of The us’s most formidable industries, a company that drastically changed American eating patterns, and hence, American life. It can be argued that what Henry Ford did for the car and transportation, Billy Ingram did for the hamburger and eating.

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