Way back when, I asked:

So I'm at a loss. Is this what they mean by Hamburger Michigan? I guess I'll have to go back to Montreal to find out. Why have I lived 43 years in Michigan and never even heard of it before now? And why is it called that? That may be one of those rare answers that just isn't to be found on the Web.

Well, I think I've finally found the answer, courtesy of Wikipedia:

A Michigan hot dog or, "Michigan", is a steamed hot dog on a steamed bun topped with a meaty sauce, generally referred to as "Michigan Sauce". The sauce may or may not be tomato-based, depending on where the Michigan is purchased. Michigans can be served with or without chopped onions. If served with onions, the onions can either be buried under the sauce or sprinkled on top of the sauce.

Michigans are a particular favorite in the North Country of New York State, and have been so for many decades. In fact, one of the earliest known advertisements for Michigans appeared in the Friday, May 27, 1927, Plattsburgh Daily Republican [1].

Michigans are also very popular in Montréal and other parts of Québec, where the sauce that is put on them is invariably tomato-based and is often simpy referred to as "spaghetti sauce". Lafleur Restaurants, a Québec fast food chain, is known for its Michigans and poutine.

Oddly enough, "Michigan hot dogs", are never referred to as "Michigans" in Michigan itself, nor anywhere else in the Midwest. A similar food item, the "coney" or "Coney Island dog", is a hot dog topped with onions and either chili or a meatless chili called coney sauce. Conversely, the "Coney Island" is not called as such on Coney Island, or anywhere else in New York State; it's called either a "Michigan" or a "Red Hot." Finally, in southeast Michigan, a "Coney Island" is also a type of fast-food restaurant that primarily sells hot dogs and french fries.

OK, got it: a Michigan dog is called a Coney in Michigan, or a Michigan in Coney. Makes perfect sense:

Although there are many different varieties of Michigan sauce[2] available today, the original Michigan sauce was created by Mr. George Todoroff in Jackson, Michigan. The sauce was originally created to be used as chile sauce. In 1914, Mr. Todoroff took his recipe to Coney Island in Brooklyn New York and opened his first restaurant. However, the hot dog hadn’t arrived on the scene when he first opened his restaurant, so he had to wait until 1916 to make his first famous "Jackson Coney Island" hot dog.

...

According to the second, and more likely story, a couple (Mr. Jack Rabin and his wife) from Plattsburgh went to Coney Island on vacation. They, like everyone else at Coney Island, ate a Jackson Coney Island Hot Dog and fell in love with it. When they came home to Plattsburgh, they recreated the sauce and decided to put it to work. They opened a "Michigan Hot Dog" stand, named Nitzi’s, on Route 9 just outside the city. The name came about because they couldn’t call their sandwich a Jackson Coney Island so they gave it the name of the state from where it was born.

So I think that settles it. Of course, everything in that article discusses Michigan sauce on hot dogs, never on hamburgers. But I think "Hamburger Michigan" may refer to the hamburger in the sauce, not what it's spread on. To wit, here's an ad for Bison Gourmet Meat Sauce from Shop the Adirondacks:

Your healthy replacement for high fat "Hamburger Michigan Sauce"

MADE WITH BISON - NOT HAMBURGER

And note in the picture that the sauce is spread on, yes, a hot dog. So I suspect that, if I ever get back to Montreal and order a Hamburger Michigan, I'm going to find it looks an awful lot like a hot dog.

Of course, as the truly discriminating Michigan hot dog eater knows, there's really only one name for this kind of dog: Yesterdog. (No, they don't have their own web site, as far as I can find. They don't need one. Maybe if business ever drops off, they'll need a web site to drum up more; but as I can't recall a lunch or dinner time when the line wasn't out the door, I don't see that happening yet.)

Still exploring. Updates soon, I hope.

...in pretty much every detail.

But I loved it!

TNT's showing it again right away, so I'm going to watch again. Review after, if I have time.

As some of you may know, I have been named an MVP for Visual Development (C#) by Microsoft. The MVP program is an effort by Microsoft to recognize people in the community who help other people to learn and use Microsoft's technologies. They give us advance information and other perks because they know we're enthusiastic supporters of their products. They hope that their supporting us will help us to build the community of satisfied Microsoft users.

As part of that growth effort, early this year they sent us each three coupons for MSDN Premium Subscriptions, with the instruction that we were to use them to help the community. They gave us no rules or guidelines beyond that. MSDN Premium is a developer suite consisting of pretty much every development tool Microsoft has, plus developer licenses for Office, SQL Server, and every operating system Microsoft publishes. There's lots of other stuff as well. It's everything a developer needs to develop for the MS platforms.

I'm trying to take seriously the commission to use these coupons for the good of the community. I gave my first coupon to a friend of a friend who was out of work, and who wanted to upgrade his skill set. I figured that was a good cause. I gave my second coupon to the West Michigan .NET User Group where I was speaking, so that they could offer it as a door prize to help promote the group. Good .NET groups are a great way to spread .NET programming knowledge.

But I'm still trying to find a home for the final MSDN Premium Subscription before year end; and I really want to make this one count. I would like it to go to a good cause; but I'm not sure what that cause should be, so I'm asking for your help. Maybe you know a way I can use this to help a good cause. Maybe you know a good charity that could use it, or maybe a really deserving person who could use it to get into a development job. When I give this one away, I want to feel like Microsoft and I made a difference in some way.

So if you have a suggestion for a way to put this coupon to good use, please let me know. Either leave a comment, or send an email to MSDN*at*TabletUML*dot*com (address obscured to cut down on spam — you can figure it out). I'll take all suggestions from now until next Friday. Then I'll review them, decide which looks like the best (as judged by me and some trusted friends), and announce the results in the following week.

A lot of people would like this for the free stuff. I understand that. If you're going to suggest I give it to you, I won't ask you not to; but please consider if you're doing so for the free stuff, or because you really have a need for it. I'll listen to your justification; but the coupon will go where I think it will do the most good.

I really hope you can help me here. Thanks!