Slider Nation

Before 1920, the hamburger was little known in America—and if it did pop onto anyone’s radar, it was likely in the form of a novel, ethnic-German item known as the “Hamburg sandwich,” or perhaps “Hamburg Steak,” as it appeared on the menu at tony Delmonico’s in New York circa 1834. Sure, antiquarians have relayed accounts of curious hamburgers surfacing at the odd fair and lunch wagon at times through the 1800s and early 1900s, but none can justifiably declare that the hamburger fully entered American culinary parlance until Edgar “Billy” Ingram and Walter Anderson began their White Castle empire in 1921.

Surmounting the negative image of ground meat—and meat in general—cast by Upton Sinclair’s 1906 muckraking classic “The Jungle” was no small feat, but the marketing-savvy kings of the Castle were up to the task, grinding fresh, choice beef on site, and in plain sight, and selling the subsequently steam-grilled burgers, which some dubbed “sliders” (and eventually “Slyders®”...), for 5¢ a pop. Toss in introductory coupons advertising 10 burgers for a mere two bits, and lines circled the block. Great ideas crave growth, and imitators instantly sprouted across the American landscape. Before the decade’s end, canonization was official: As David Gerard Hogan notes in “The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink,” in 1929 the president of the American Restaurant Association tapped the hamburger, along with apple pie, as America’s favorite food. Today, burgers retain that quintessential crown; we consume roughly 40 billion hamburgers each year—about 150 apiece—easily making it the top national nosh. God bless Hamburg, Germany (even though their not-a-meatball, not-a-patty Frikadeller inspiration differs markedly from our American burger ... details sometimes deliciously disappear in translation...).

Although burgers assume innumerable forms, of late—with no little help from our sputtering economy—we’ve come full circle back to the slider. An ever-increasing number of restaurant chains and independents, from QSR through fine dining, offer some interpretation of the venerable slider. Denny’s has sliders—and so does Ducasse, including a version with boudin noir at his New York bistro, Benoit. Ruby Tuesday? Yep. Robuchon? Indeed. The Kobe and foie gras sliders at his eponymous L’Atelier sport quite a following. Hit almost anything in between, and you’re apt to find some form of slider (or “mini”)—from good-old ground beef to chicken, pulled pork to crab, and on up to Kobe, lobster and that oh-so-luscious foie gras—on the menu. No matter how you slice it, once it hits that little bun, it’s a slider.

The degree to which the multifaceted slider has entrenched itself into American cuisine must bring an easy smile to the lips of the current Ingram kings of the crave Castle, which, despite such undeniable influence on an industry, is still a relatively modest—albeit highly successful—family-owned chain.

After all, they always knew how little, particularly when given just the right climate, can grow into something incredibly big.