Read "Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food" by Eric Schlosser online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The story of fast food begins in October 1885, near the small town of Seymour, Wisconsin. A friendly and outgoing fifteen-year-old boy named Charlie Nagreen was driving his family's ox cart down a dirt road amid wide-open fields. Charlie was going to Outagamie County's first annual fair, where he wanted to earn some extra money selling meatballs. What happened next was the unlikely origin of a delicious sandwich that would one day change the world.
As Charlie sold meatballs at the fair, he noticed that customers had trouble eating them and strolling at the same time. People were impatient. They wanted to visit Mr. John Bull's popular beehives (encased in glass), to see the fancy new harvesting machines, and to enjoy all the other thrilling attractions at the fair. They didn't want to waste time eating meatballs. Charlie suddenly had an idea: if he squashed the meatballs and put them between two slices of bread, people could walk and eat. And so Charlie invented the hamburger.