The Music Legend Who May Have Inspired The Donut Burger

There have been countless fast food trends over the years that have flirted with the line between edible and excessive. From chicken sandwiches where fried filets serve as bread, to hot dog-stuffed pizza crust and bright orange nacho cheese-blasted tacos, these Frankenstein-like creations have dominated take-out culture by pushing culinary boundaries. One of the most deliciously decadent fast food fusions to make its way into the mainstream is the donut burger, a juicy bacon cheeseburger stacked in between a glazed donut. Also known as the Luther Burger, this gluttonous delight is said to have been inspired (and possibly invented) by none other than the dearly departed R&B legend Luther Vandross.

According to rumor, Vandross created the concoction after running out of burger buns, deciding to employ a pair of Krispy Kreme donuts as a substitute. Although donuts as buns lack the proper structural integrity to keep a burger from falling apart (much like brioche buns loathed by the late Anthony Bourdain), the sheer novelty of the dish has catapulted it into mainstream popularity. In 2006, The Luther Burger was even featured in an episode of the hit animated series "The Boondocks" where patriarch Robert Freeman served the addictive sandwich at his up-and-coming soul food restaurant. Even though the episode ends with the restaurant shuttering due to health-related lawsuits, there have been many real-life iterations of the infamous Luther Burger, including a controversial Burger King version that can only be found in Ecuador.

While his name will forever be associated with cheese-covered beef patties slid onto sugary fried buns, there's actually no solid proof to substantiate rumors that Grammy award-winning singer Luther Vandross did, in fact, invent the Luther Burger. One popular theory claims that the sandwich was actually invented by a cook at Mulligan's, a now-closed bar in Decatur, GA that was also well known for serving deep-fried burger-wrapped hot dogs. While Mulligan's Luther Burger dates back to at least 2005, the earliest internet evidence of the burger comes from a Seattle-based blog that posted a Fatburger patty sandwiched between Krispy Kreme donuts –– dubbed the "Fatkreme" –– in 2003.

Never to be outdone, Southern cooking star and restaurateur Paula Deen took to the airwaves in 2008 to popularize her own egg-covered version of the donut burger on an episode of her Food Network series "Paula's Home Cooking." Deen later claimed to have invented the calorie-packed sandwich in an appearance on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in 2012. This claim, however, was debunked a few months later by Deen's son Jamie, who told Daily Meal that his mother's recipe was a "spoof" of a burger served at a Minor League Baseball stadium in Illinois. The donut burger's comfort food status was further cemented by an appearance at the Indiana State Fair in 2010, sold by a vendor who claimed Deen's recipe as inspiration.

Static Media owns and operates Food Republic and Daily Meal.