Before McDonald's and Burger King were selling fast food burgers, there was White Castle and its famous sliders. The iconic restaurant opened way back in 1921, and fast food history was made. The burgers haven't changed too much in the 100 years since, but a few alterations have been made in the name of getting food out even quicker. Of course, the chain got a major boost when it was referenced in the title of the first Harold and Kumar film, but they were originally supposed to go somewhere else. Here are some things you probably didn't know about White Castle's famous sliders.
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00:00You know how all the popular eateries of today boast of fresh ingredients, unique toppings,
00:05and clean places?
00:07That's exactly how White Castle became famous.
00:09Yes, that same place where Harold and Kumar went to chow down on a ton of sliders was
00:14at one time the pinnacle of innovation, and responsible for changing the entire way Americans
00:20eat.
00:21And they owe it all to a tiny hamburger.
00:23Here's what you don't know about White Castle's famous sliders.
00:27Good morrow, sir, and welcome to the Castle of White!"
00:32The first fast food hamburger
00:35McDonald's may be synonymous with fast food, but White Castle beat them to the punch by
00:39nearly two decades.
00:41In 1921, Billy Ingram and Walter Anderson decided to open a restaurant focusing on the
00:47relatively newfangled sandwich called the hamburger.
00:51After their first joint in Wichita, Kansas, proved popular, they soon opened branches
00:55in El Dorado, Kansas, and Omaha, Nebraska, becoming the first hamburger fast food chain
01:01in the world.
01:03Why white?
01:04Thanks to shocking exposés like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the meat industry had a bit of
01:10a bad name back in the day.
01:12To counter that, Ingram and Anderson decided they would show how pristine their operation
01:16was by painting the building white and using stainless steel on the inside so no stains
01:22could hide anywhere.
01:23The marketing gimmick worked, and White Castle was born.
01:28Burger design
01:29White Castle had a secret to getting their burgers out quickly.
01:32They were wicked tiny.
01:34In fact, they're so thin, White Castle can make 18 of them with just one pound of beef.
01:39That allows them to be cooked faster.
01:41But originally, they still weren't being cooked fast enough.
01:44White Castle pioneered the art of searing both sides of the burger to keep the flavor
01:49in, something other chains like Five Guys and Steak N' Shake later emulated, but it
01:53still took too long to cook them.
01:55So in the early 1950s, a White Castle cook from Cincinnati by the name of Earl Howell
02:00suggested they poke little holes in the patties to cook them faster.
02:04It worked, leading to the burgers you know and love today.
02:09Onion time
02:10White Castle used to flip their burgers, but like searing, it just took too much time.
02:15So now they simply put the burger on top of a pile of onions and let the burger cook via
02:20onion steam.
02:21They then lock in that steam bath by plopping the bottom bun on the burger while it's still
02:25cooking.
02:26It's this onion method that gives White Castle sliders their unique taste, as each burger
02:31ends up paired with roughly two ounces of rehydrated onions, just enough to provide
02:36that special flavor.
02:38The burger content
02:39White Castle boldly claims they use 100 percent beef, which is nice, even though it doesn't
02:45mean a whole lot.
02:46Ground beef can be any cut of cow, though the Department of Agriculture says it can't
02:50have more than 30 percent fat.
02:52So how much fat does White Castle beef have, exactly?
02:56Each tiny slider packs six grams of fat, 2.5 of which is saturated.
03:01And with all that fat comes the calories, with 140 a slider.
03:05So if you pick up a crave case of 30 sliders, you're looking at almost 4,200 calories.
03:12Science
03:14In the 1930s, hamburgers had a bad reputation, so White Castle co-founder Billy Ingram commissioned
03:19University of Minnesota physiological chemistry professor Jesse McClendon to do a study proving
03:25White Castle burgers were safe to eat.
03:27Test subject Bernard Flesch, a med student at the university, spent the next 13 weeks
03:32eating only White Castle burgers, and survived the experience intact.
03:37The study, Ingram said, showed that people
03:39"...could eat nothing but our sandwiches and water and fully develop all physical and
03:43mental faculties."
03:45Flesch later became a doctor and died of heart problems at age 54, and according to his daughter,
03:51he never willingly ate hamburgers again.
03:54They have a food truck
03:56There are just over 400 White Castle locations spread across only 13 states, so there's a
04:01pretty good chance you've never had a White Castle slider.
04:04Luckily, there's a solution — the White Castle Cravemobile food truck, which drives
04:09around the country, selling sliders outside events like fairs or NASCAR races.
04:14In 2015, they parked outside the Orlando theme park Fun Spot and sold over 10,000 sliders
04:21in a single day.
04:22And if you can't find the food truck, you can also check your local supermarket, as
04:26White Castle is the nation's top distributor of frozen burgers.
04:30They're exactly the same as the burgers in the restaurants, but you'll have to supply
04:33your own pickle.
04:36Sliders
04:37Even if you're the biggest White Castle fan in the world, you might be spelling their
04:40signature burger wrong.
04:42Technically, the trademark term is sliders, though even White Castle doesn't always remember
04:47to use that silly Y, referring to them on their own website as the Original Slider.
04:53Harold and Kumar go to Krispy Kreme
04:55Let's be real — when you hear White Castle, you think Harold and Kumar.
04:59But that almost never happened, because the movie's producers first approached Krispy
05:04They declined, though, as something about a couple kids stoned out of their minds apparently
05:08didn't sit well with the image they wanted to sell donuts.
05:11Instead, White Castle stepped in and etched their name into pop culture history.
05:15Damn, that hit the spot.
05:17That was the best meal of my life.