MERIDEN, Conn. (AP) - Once known as the Silver City due to the prominence of the silver industry, the city has taken on a new moniker in recent decades.
“Everyone comes to Meriden for steamed cheeseburgers,” said Kevin LaMay, owner of K LaMay’s Steamed Cheeseburgers. “Meriden is known for a few things. It used to be the Silver City, now it’s the Steam City.”
LaMay opened his restaurant on East Main Street a decade ago after working at Ted’s Restaurant, a steamed cheeseburger institution on Broad Street founded in 1959.
On the wall of his restaurant, LaMay has a map of the United States with a pin representing each person who has come from outside the state. LaMay said friends have told him he should upgrade his map to a globe.
K LaMay’s is now a staple of the steamed cheeseburger community, but Ted’s came first in Meriden and helped make the steamed cheeseburger famous.
“It was always my opinion, that Jack’s Lunch in Middletown, in the late 1920s, was the originator,” former Ted’s owner Paul Duberek told the Record-Journal in 2006.
Ted’s was open until 4 a.m. to feed drivers and late-shift workers from the factories in Meriden.
Tom Schappert, a Meriden native who opened American Steamed Cheeseburgers in Wallingford in 2013, said he saw in a documentary that steamed cheeseburgers were created around the late 1800s or early 1900s to feed factory workers.
“Around the turn of the century and they would bring them out to the factories. It was a cheap easy way to make food,” he said.
“This generation is going to know this area more for the (steamed) burger than the silver,” Schappert added. “Absolutely.”
Schappert grew up behind Ted’s, and one thing led to another.
“I never planned on doing this, it just kind of happened,” he said. “The steamed cheeseburger is a very unique product.”
The burgers are cooked in steam boxes. Water boils and steam rises in the box to cook the meat.
“We don’t let people make these at my restaurants until they have trained for about six months,” LaMay said. “You have to keep the burger moist and medium well, instead of well. If they get well they dry out very fast.”
Since the burger is cooked using steam, they are considered healthier and easier to digest.
“If you cook on a flat top, the burger sits on the flat top in its own oil. You flip it and sometimes after you eat it, you feel kind of full, bloated,” LaMay said. “Here the steam cooks them, it’s just water, steam coming up. It sits in its own juices.”
The cheese plays an important role in a steamed cheeseburger.
“I tried 12 different cheeses when I started and almost everyone picked this cheese,” LaMay said. “You want to get the sharpness where it gives the burger a kick, but you don’t want it to be too sharp where it tastes like you’re eating cheese and crackers and it kills the sandwich. You have to get a nice balance in there.”
The steamed cheeseburger is still a staple of Meriden, but is growing throughout the state. Ted’s opened a location in Cromwell in 2011, while LaMay has another location in East Hampton and opened Double Play Café in Wallingford.
“If you go too far, you have to advertise the right way. You have to sell them,” LaMay said. “If you’re close to here and people have heard of them you don’t have to sell them, they sell themselves. Once they have one, our repeat customers are great. Out of 100 I would say 95 people like them.”
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Information from: Record-Journal, https://www.record-journal.com
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