"THE HAMBURGER: A HISTORY" BY JOSH OZERSKY; YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Writing an ode to a single foodstuff is a road studded with pitfalls. If you go too granular, your narrative is derailed by obscurity. If you're too generalist, you sink into a morass of cliche.

Which is why, with the hamburger — a quintessential Fourth of July barbecue staple — a deft hand is needed to straddle the narrative strands of cultural, culinary and business history and place it all into context. Josh Ozersky succeeds in "The Hamburger: A History," effectively a book-length essay on small slabs of ground-up cow and the buns that love them.

Many culinary histories, particularly those that cast food as an indicator of culture, are overstuffed and meandering — full of information and detail but lacking a certain sharpness and substituting liberal doses of affection instead. Not so "The Hamburger."

Ozersky tells a taut tale of the sandwich's diaspora and hand-to-mouth existence, from the legendary beginnings to the pioneering ministrations of the early White Castle chain, from the founding McDonald brothers to franchising genius Ray Kroc and beyond, all the way to Morgan Spurlock, who made a documentary of his 30-day feeding frenzy on an all-McDonald's diet.

He is pleasingly omnivorous in his sources, enlisting everything from architecture criticism to political analysis to the deconstruction of Hollywood movies ("American Graffiti" and its hamburger-culture scenery) as he examines hamburger culture and hamburger nostalgia. He makes a convincing case that the latter is, ultimately, a "lucrative lie."

Ozersky's unusual blend of passion and common sense sets his book apart from others of its kind. It's easy for aficionados to slide from thoroughness into obsession, leaving casual readers drowning in the immersion. But while Ozersky, a food editor for New York magazine, never stops being entertaining, his book is far more than empty calories; it teaches a lot about culture along the way.

That isn't to say that he lacks overt enthusiasm. Ultimately, though, even his more histrionic moments feel in tune with the car-culture indulgence that a good burger offers.

Consider this extraordinary rant, which sets up the hamburger as the battleground for an epic conflict between all that is good and evil about America:

"But just what is the content of this beefy, juicy, bun-bound message? What do Americans think of when they think of the hamburger? A robust, succulent spheroid of fresh ground beef, the birthright of red-blooded citizens? Or a Styrofoam-shrouded Big Mac, mass-produced to industrial specifications and served by wage slaves to an obese, brainwashed population? Is it a sizzling disc of goodness, served in a roadside restaurant dense with local lore, or the grim end product of a secret, sinister empire of tormented animals and unspeakable slaughtering practices? Is it cooking or commodity? An icon of freedom or the quintessence of conformity?"

Wow. "Sizzling disc of goodness," no less. If ever a passage needed a 32-ounce Coke to wash it down, there it is. Would you like adjectives with that?