Fast food hamburgers are such ubiquitous American fare that you’d think historians would be able to nail down some key facts especially with White Castle, the burger chain born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921. The restaurant laid the groundwork leading to America’s obsession with this dish. We know why White Castle burger patties have five holes — they cook faster and are more economical for the company — but the name associated with its diminutive burgers is a bit of a mystery.
There are several origin stories for the term “slider,” and while two are associated with White Castle, the third has to do with the sub-par food of the U.S. Navy during World War II. The first relates to the size of the White Castle burger which so small it can easily slide down your throat. The other revolves around how White Castle operated back in the day when white-aproned employees would make your burger and slide it down the counter to you on a porcelain plate as you sat waiting. The navy connection relates to the small slimy burgers the sailors were served during the war were so greasy they easily slid down their throats.
A small greasy US Navy burger?
The U.S. Navy’s cuisine was notoriously bad during World War II. Its chow included a lot of dehydrated food like potatoes that were nearly impossible to make palatable and powdered eggs for breakfast that were so gross they had to be drowned in ketchup to choke them down. So it’s plausible that sailors would come up with a slang term for a small greasy burger. On his website, food etymologist Barry Popik cites “considerable evidence,” including interviews with veterans, that the term originated with sailors. At the very least, they helped popularize the term’s use.
Although American sailors used the term, it may have been co-opted by White Castle customers. In the book “Selling ’em by the Sack: White Castle and the Creation of American Food,” author David G. Hogan asserts that White Castle had been “successfully dodging the term slider since the 1930s” before finally embracing it. That would put the word’s origin at least a decade before its use in the Navy during the ’40s.
The White Castle slider connection
It makes sense that sliders and White Castle share a history. White Castle was the first fast food restaurant chain and helped popularize hamburgers at a time when they were considered low class and potentially dangerous to your health. One way the company’s founders, J. Walter Anderson and, Billy Ingram, worked to change the hamburger’s unsavory image was by having pristinely clean restaurants and employees who wore unblemished white uniforms. Even the name was meant to evoke cleanliness and stability — “White” for purity and “Castle” for permanence.
The term slider became synonymous with White Castle’s unique burgers, which were small, square, steam-grilled, and covered in onions (and still are). There were other names for White Castle burgers as well: belly busters and Whitey one-bites. By the ’90s, when White Castle finally embraced the name slider (but spelled it “Slyder” because of copyright issues) the burgers had become trendy, so much so that chef, author, and TV personality Anthony Bourdain called the kobe beef versions a “clear and present danger” in an interview with Town & Country in 2017 because they were about prestige rather than flavor. And for some, a slider remains not just a pint-sized burger, but the kind you can only get at White Castle.
