Consider the hamburger as it flips from grill to bun. It came to us, as one legend has it, in a moment of inspiration and exigency at a late-19th-century agricultural fair. It became associated with industrialization, the worker’s fast food, the harried woman’s liberation. “Give mother a night off,” White Castle urged in the 1930s.

The burger’s identity has always been in motion, and not just because people can walk and eat one at the same time. And now, the best embodiment of the burger — capturing what it has always meant in American culture — is a nice, juicy, plant-based protein patty, hot off the grill. I’m not just saying that because I have been a vegetarian for 44 years and a vegan for a quarter of a century.

The hamburger has always been about efficiency, deliciousness and innovation. That is what plant-based patties are now.

Think of the hamburger as a single-portion protein patty and you locate its predecessors not in the ground horse meat of the conquering Tartars but in falafel, nut cutlets, veggie croquettes and millennium-old Indian-fried, protein-rich lentil or bean patties.