Mc Donalds has been around my whole life, but it hasn’t been around me. It was late coming to my hometown, where my introduction to fast food chains came via the also-rans.
McDonalds has tens of thousands of restaurants around the world. They took in almost $30 billion dollars in revenue in 2011. They have state-of-the-art laboratories, test kitchens, a gaggle of in-house chefs, engineers, and practically an unlimited budget to develop new products. Yet not one of their signature items comes close to tasting like the actual food category it purports to be in. The burgers don’t taste like beef, the nuggets don’t taste like chicken, the rib thing doesn’t taste like pork, and the fish resembles nothing that ever came out of the sea. Even the fries. Hot? Yes. Salty? Yes. Crispy? Yep. Taste like potatoes? Nope.
So McDonalds does something any hash-slinging cook at a diner knows how to do, they load up their sandwiches with condiments, until the point is reached that the condiment becomes the primary taste diners experience.
I propose they change their name to McCondiment. In fact, as their ketchup, mustard, bbq, and tartar sauce taste pretty much like any other competitive product. Pickles? Not so much. I can personally vouch for their salt packets as being superb.
So come on McDonalds, feed the world, sure, fine by me. But let’s not completely lose sight of the notion that once upon a time, these sandwich fillers started out as animals; now lets’ make them taste like their origins once again.
