Do your remember making lists of desert island objects when you were a kid? That was what you did before you made lists of desert island songs and books as a teenager. In such lists, you'd think about what you'd need to survive and use those ten items to make a nuclear reactor out of a coconut so that you could live in style in exile.
McToast is sad toast. It's what you'd make at home if you were out of bread and had nothing but stale burger buns to work with.
Sometimes it feels like fast food places are working with the same limits. They have a short list of food stuffs and they keep juggling the mix around to create "new" menu items. This breakfast option from McDonald's Japan feels like a dance card shuffled into the wrong place. It is their fried chicken patty added to an Egg McMuffin. I guess that someone at corporate asked, "what do we have that we haven't swapped into the morning menu?" Still, it's less pathetic than the "McToast" option. That's a burger bun flipped around so that the inside is toasted and filled with ham (Canadian bacon) and cheese.
This probably seems less strange in Japan than it would in America. They already have hot dogs on their regular morning menu there and it is a culture which includes fish and rice as part of its traditional breakfast. To me though, fried chicken, even in the form of a patty of pressed meat, is just "wrong" for breakfast. I'm guessing it's pretty good though if you're hungover, as no small number of businessmen are inclined to be.
I think most food companies are operating within these same limits. For example, why go to all the hassle of making a new chocolate bar, which won't crack the top ten (which haven't changed in Canada at least for the past 4o years) when all you need to do is mess with the flavour or something you already have.
ReplyDeleteThe flipside is that people are trying too hard to make something new--ridiculous combinations that never should have left the test kitchen.
While it might be bland to only make minor changes, it will be that way until someone or some company really shakes it up. This is true of music, television and food.
If McDonald's really wanted to shake things up they would put turkey burgers on the menu, or create a burger with some less than standard toppings.
Absolutely, they are all working in these limits, and I have heard a similar criticism of Taco Bell.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think that, occasionally, they do introduce new variables (like McRib or the weird pasta croquette that Japan had some time ago). I think it'd be nice if they did that more often than recycling their old crap...especially the pathetic burger bun "toast". ;-)
Thanks for your comment!
I have seen a lot of interesting programs and I remember one that showed a fast food test kitchen. I would really like to work in one of those. Maybe my idea could be the revolutionary one.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the chicken one would seem strange to Americans who know anything about Chick Fil A's breakfast menu.
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