Loop 7 surrounds Athens, Texas. It's a four lane, 16.6 mile masterpiece of civic organization and planning. Driving around it, you wouldn't know a fully functioning small city lies within, the small city hasn't made it out to the loop yet. But it thrives inside. They have a cancer institute, they have a community college, they have a fishery, and the first hamburger was served there in the 1880s.
Fletcher Davis was his name, and he invented the burger category by frying up ground beef patties, adding mustard and Bermuda onions between two slices of bread, with a pickle on the side. He took his delicacy to Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893. It was a hit with the common folks, but the snooty class gave it the name hamburger after the barbaric eating practices of the people in Hamburg, Germany. Something about eating fist fulls of raw hamburger meat. The word hamburger was meant as a slur.
Either way, kudos to Athens, Texas for its grub. Ate the best gumbo I ever ate at Tia Juanita's Fish Camp for supper. The huge place was filled with interesting wall art-- a massive painting of Willie Nelson and George Strait, Chewbacca carrying a surfboard, a B.B. King concert poster, Mick Jagger in the rafters, Stevie Nicks, too. I sat alone, drank a bottle of beer, and gawked. No evidence of anything Greek inspired in Athens, Texas, a town all its own.
