McDonald’s fries used to be a treat. Now, in Germany (at least in the Germany of 30+ years ago) they’re still fried the ‘old fashioned’ way.
And I did a comparison ‘taste test’ – with about a 20 hours time lag – between the two when my Battalion re-deployed to the U.S.
I hit the McDonalds at Frankfurt/Rhine Main airport just before we left and the one in Lawton Oklahoma’s downtown mall when our trip finally ended.
2 things told me I was back home. The 1/4 pounder & fries’ taste reminded me of cardboard, and the prices on everything were posted in dollars.
My Hunt for the Original McDonald’s French-Fry Recipe.
From Julia Child to Paul Bocuse to James Beard, some of the biggest names in food history are also people who have professed their love for the same french fry—a french fry that, in no exaggerated manner, birthed an empire. A french fry that no one has eaten in more than 30 years.
McDonald’s original french fries were cooked in beef tallow. For that fact, they were bullied out of production by a well-funded, well-intentioned businessman and self-proclaimed health advocate named Phil Sokolof, who unknowingly dethroned what many fans claim was the greatest french fry to ever meet mass production. “The french fries were very good,” Child said in a 1995 interview, “and then the nutritionists got at them … and they’ve been limp ever since … I’m always very strong about criticizing them, hoping maybe they’ll change.”
Child never lived to see McDonald’s fries return to their former glory, and sadly, and there’s no indication they ever will. That’s why I set out on a quest to find the original recipe.
My hunt for the lost McRecipe took me up the corporate ladder and to obsessive corners of Reddit. I spoke to fast-food experts, super-fan museum curators, and a 79-year-old former employee of the very first McDonald’s. After weeks of digging, I procured a recipe for the original fries that one fast-food historian believes to be the real deal, one I recreated several times to ensure its legitimacy. I sweat over hot tallow, bled from cutting perfect shoestrings, and literally got pulverized salt in those wounds. But according to at least one expert, I have reason to believe the recipe I’ve uncovered is authentic.
Before you recreate a masterpiece, it bears knowing from whence it came. Continue reading “”