McDonald's Precious Quarter Pounders (product information)

McDonald's launched a campaign in which they are offering burgers named after precious gems and metals throughout July. It started with the "gold ring", a burger featuring a ring of pineapple, bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, and barbecue sauce with 10 spices on a kaiser roll. The more recent release was the "black diamond" which features egg yolk, black truffle sauce, Swiss cheese, and grilled onions and mushrooms on brioche-like bread. On July 20, they'll offer the "ruby spark". This one will feature pepper jack cheese, spicy avocado sauce/spread, jalepeno, and chorizo.

While McDonald's doesn't mention why they've decided to release three designer burgers for a week each, my guess is this is to draw attention to their quarter pounder in general, which was recently reissued in Japan as part of their summer fare.

One interesting thing is the FAQ for these burgers. It has questions that reveal something about Japanese food culture and the lack of sophisticated understanding of various types of cheese. In a country that is largely catered to with plastic-wrapped slices of processed cheese, this is no shocker. One of the question is essentially saying, "why are there holes in my cheese?" The answer is that it is Emmental (Swiss) and that is natural. Another is about how the holes are big in their cheese and the consumer is concerned that they're not getting their fair share. The folks at McDonald's mention that the cheese is portioned by weight, so it doesn't matter how big the holes are.

Personally, I think a better answer to the question of why there are holes in the cheese would be that Ronald got confused with his hole punch and just went a little crazy one day. :-)