Anyone remember the “new Whopper” from the 90s? When they “reformulated it?” And sure enough, the taste changed significantly.
Yet, they didn’t change the broilers they use to cook them. Just did something to the “100% all beef.”
Scares me.
I worked at BK for 11 months in 1981-82. Since then, I’ve been back perhaps a half-dozen times – and one of those, only because of the $5 Xbox 360 games.
Sure, all the fast food places have scary practices and hygiene-apathetic crews. But at least I haven’t seen the insides of the competing sausage factories.*
Though I did give up Micky D’s after “Super-size me.” The “1,000 cows in every McDonald’s burger” was the clicher there. Blech.
I haven’t been to a true fast food restaurant in years, and there’s a McDonalds right next to where I work. For burgers I mostly get White Spot because that’s what they have on the ferry. Not good, not bad, just kind of beige.
This thread is making me hate having moved to Boston.
I mean, D’angelo’s makes up for some of it, but man, there’s none of the stuff I mentioned above. Hell, there’s not even a Dairy Queen within 30 minutes.
Back in the late 70s-early 80s I worked at two Wendy’s. One was in Brooklyn, NY (Jay Street for those who know NY) and Redford Township, MI (Five Mile Rd.)
There was a bit of a dichotomy between the two. The Michigan Wendy’s (back then) used freshly ground hamburger, brought in daily. The NY one used frozen.
They both used overcooked burgers for their chili. They had a sort of grill cycle kind of thing. The new, uncooked burgers, were started on the lower left of the grill. As burgers were taken off the grill, they moved cooking burgers to the right and to the top of the grill. You could actually ask for rare, medium or well done back then.
When a burger was at the top right and too well done to serve, it was put into a deep hotel pan and:
In MI it was placed in the walk in fridge covered with plastic wrap.
In NY the hotel pan was tucked under the grill until closing. Where the vermin liked to occasionally snack on it.
The next day I’d make the chili before we opened. I used two spatulas to chop up the burgers. Then water was added to cover. Then it was boiled for a bit. In NY this was good 'cause roach parts float, and are skimmed off.
Then the meat is drained and dumped into a big plastic drum. A couple of cans of beans, a bag of seasoning and some more water is added.
In MI the barrel of chili is covered with a plastic lid. In NY it’s covered with plastic wrap, sometimes. If we had the right size.
Back into the walk in fridge with the new stuff. Older stuff goes out to the steamer to heat up.
Well, that’s the thing. I haven’t stopped eating burgers in the last few years, I’ve just been eating them at pubs-- where they’re generally good quality meat (Niman Ranch ftw), thick, and piled high with fresh vegetables. And no burger is complete without a pint of beer, so that rules out all fast food restaurants. I guess the only exception I’ve made in the Bay Area is Nation’s, where they have the opposite problem, too much stuff: no burger needs a whole cross-section of onion.
Oh, I thought you were saying that you’d never had a milkshake at a fast food joint because what they call milkshakes, aren’t the real thing.
But now that I understand your point I say WHAAAA?!? Both In-n-Out and Chick-fil-a are smug about their shakes and how they don’t cotton to using mixes. Chick-fil-a in particular is all about calling them “hand-dipped” which makes them taste better because it sounds dirty.
