Modern Proverb: Sacred cows make the best hamburger (antedating attrib Aardvark magazine 1965)

Thu Mar 11 18:23:27 UTC 2010

Regarding the (putative) proverb "Sacred cows make great (the best, gourmet) hamburger (burgers)," I also find this in Google Books with the date 1942:  "A lot of sacred cows ought to be ground into hamburger."

The citation is _Walther League Messenger_ 51: 433. That looks right, but I lack access to the volume to verify the information.

--Charlie

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:59:47 -0500
>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf of "Garson O'Toole" <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>)
>Subject: Modern Proverb: Sacred cows make the best hamburger (antedating attrib Aardvark magazine 1965)
>
>Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
>
>The earliest recorded citation for a close variant of this phrase is
>1971. We present citations starting in 1965.
>
>The Yale Book of Quotations, WikiQuote, and Bonnie Taylor have the
>best information currently available about this saying I think. YBQ
>notes that Abbie Hoffman is associated with the maxim and cites a New
>York Times article dated 1989 April 20. The Times describes a memorial
>service for Hoffman datelined the 19th with a Rabbi who presents the
>quote ''Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger'' which is portrayed
>as one of Mr. Hoffman's favorite sayings.
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/20/us/mourning-and-celebrating-a-radical.html
>
>YBQ also contains an earlier reference to a 1979 book of quotes that
>associates Robert Reisner with the phrase: "Sacred cows make great
>hamburgers."  WikiQuote notes that Robert Reisner and Lorraine
>Wechsler published the volume Encyclopedia of Graffiti in 1974 and it
>contains the saying. Bonnie Taylor found "Sacred cows make good
>hamburger" in a cite dated 1971.
>
>Further below we present a 1968 Time magazine article that depicts
>Reisner and his students collecting samples of graffiti. The graffito
>"Sacred cows make great hamburger" is described as a recent student
>find. Hamburger is singular here although it is plural in Reisner's
>later Encyclopedia of Graffiti.
>
>Our first instance of the saying does not refer to graffiti, Robert
>Reisner, or Abbie Hoffman. In 1965 students at Penn State planned to
>revive a humor magazine called 'Bottom of the Birdcage' with
>inspiration from another magazine called Aardvark.
>
>Citation: 1965 October 19, The Daily Collegian, Ad Hoc Resurrects
>'Bottom of Birdcage', Page 4, Column 6, Pennsylvania State University
>student paper. (Google News Archive, ActivePaper Archive full view)
>
>Birdcage's newly-adopted theme, borrowed from Aardvark magazine, is
>"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." Each issue will have something
>to offend each member of the family.
>
>http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q="borrowed+from+Aardvark+magazine"&
>
>I do not know much about Aardvark magazine. Prominent children's book
>author Shel Silverstein gave an interview to a magazine called
>Aardvark. A webpage gives this description: Aardvark "was the college
>humor mag at Roosevelt  University--but when the administration saw
>the first issue, they took away any official sanction of the mag, and
>forced [them] to publish off-campus."
>
>http://shelsilverstein.tripod.com/aardvark.html
>
>
>Our second citation is from the same source and concerns the same topic.
>
>Citation: 1965 November 13, The Daily Collegian, A Lesson in Humor,
>Page 2, Column 1, Pennsylvania State University student paper. (Google
>News Archive, ActivePaper Archive full view)
>
>Yes, the almost defunct Bottom of the Bird Cage was reborn again
>yesterday, true as ever to its policy that "sacred cows make the best
>hamburger."
>
>http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q="policy+that+sacred+cows"&
>
>
>In this third citation the saying is called "an old newspaper adage."
>
>Citation: 1968 January 25, Lowell Sun, Headliners, Page 12, Column 1,
>Lowell, Massachusetts. (NewspaperArchive)
>
>Princess Radziwell as "Laura" was, in the opinion of "Briefly"
>magnificent on TV last night. All the critics, of course, will pan
>her. It's understandable. An old newspaper adage says "Sacred cows
>make the best hamburger." Lee Bouvier is Jackie Kennedy's sister and
>she has to pay the penalty.
>
>
>In 1968 an article in Time magazine followed a class taught by author
>Robert Reisner as participants collected graffiti from lavatory walls.
>The next three cites present the saying as a graffito.
>
>Citation: 1968 November 15, Time, Curriculum: Handwriting on the Wall,
>Time, Inc. (Online Time Archive)
>
>Classes begin with students presenting their homework—arresting
>specimens of graffiti that they have collected during the week. Among
>recent, and printable, student finds: "Life is a hereditary disease,"
>found at the Princeton University student center; "Sacred cows make
>great hamburger," from an East Side cafe.
>
>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,723866,00.html
>
>
>Citation: 1969 February 14, Ada Evening News, Journalists? by Ernest
>Thompson, Page 6, Column 1, Ada, Oklahoma.  (NewspaperArchive)
>
>Recently, our main thrust has been in the area of graffiti. Here are
>some samples:
>"Sleeping Beauty took Sominex"
>"Lassie eats chickens"
>"Sacred cows make great hamburgers."
>
>
>Citation: 1969 August 29, Lowell Sun, Graffiti lives and has since
>Rome was built, Page 26, Column 1, Lowell, Massachusetts.
>(NewspaperArchive)
>
>The best humorous graffiti take a droll look at modern society and its
>hang-ups. An urban pessimist wrote "Chicken Little was right" on a
>pillar of a New York subway, for example. "Sacred cows make great
>hamburger" is not only a prime slice of wall-writing, it's a kind of
>manifesto of graffiti-dom.
>
>
>Next we present a precursor citation for the saying. The notion of
>using the meat of metaphorical sacred cows for hamburgers is mentioned
>in the sports pages of the Chicago Tribune in 1940. The citation does
>not say that hamburgers generated in this manner would be the best or
>the tastiest. So this text is thematically linked to the saying under
>investigation but has a different meaning. This cite was found by
>Bonnie Taylor and mentioned on a forum at the Snopes website.
>
>Citation: 1940 September 29, Chicago Tribune, White Sox, Cubs Open 23d
>City Series Tuesday by Irving Vaughan, Page B5, Chicago, Illinois.
>(Proquest Historical Newspapers)
>
>It is almost generally conceded that the Cubs made a 100 per cent mess
>of their National league affairs this year. By the series of brilliant
>trades for which they have become so noted, by the nursing of sacred
>cows on which there isn't enough healthy meat to make up a five cent
>hamburger, and by all around smugness, the Cubs have deteriorated to
>such an extent that a good portion of the National league seems to
>have gone away and left them.
>
>http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=101;t=000381;p=0
>
>The link immediately above goes to a forum on the Snopes website where
>Bonnie Taylor presents several interesting cites for the saying
>including the 1940 precursor, a 1967 precursor, and a 1971 cite.
>
>
>Another precursor appears in the first half of the 1960s. This cite is
>closer to the target saying because the metaphor is extended to
>"better hamburger".
>
>Citation: Circa 1960 to 1965, College Board Review, Page 24, Issues
>40-51, College Entrance Examination Board . (Google snippet view only.
>Not verified on paper. Date uncertain.)
>
>One mustn't butcher old sacred cows, however, without at least
>offering a better hamburger. So I have a modest set of recommendations
>for both ...
>
>http://books.google.com/books?id=SMAVAAAAIAAJ&q=sacred+cows#search_anchor
>
>Garson O'Toole

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