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If you’ve seen the Jack In The Box commercials promoting the imaginary Jumbaco, then you probably already figured that someone would end up trying the item out, even if it isn’t actually on the menu. Sure enough, Serious Eats has gone ahead and tried it so the rest of us wouldn’t have to.
Surprisingly, the review is pretty positive other than the fact that it is so messy:
Cheeseburgers and tacos share a lot of the same core ingredients, so the flavors blended together well (with the exception of the pickle)…The shell added some texture, and the two extra slices of cheese and taco “meat” brought a touch of simulated Mexican flavor to the burger, which is pretty mono-texture and bland on its own. On the downside, you need about one napkin per bite, and under no circumstances should anyone ever look at the slimy meat paste inside the tacos.
Now that you’ve seen someone else eat it, would you try the Jumbaco out?
Chocolate fountains…psshh, those are so 2008. These days, it’s all about the ketchup fountain when you want to make a classy statement at your next party.
Link Via Geekosystem
It seems every few years someone has topped this record again, but if you think hamburgers are an American specialty, then you’ll be happy to know the U.S. reclaimed the title from the Canadians recently. The burger is 777 pounds and contains 590 pounds of beef. Obesity epidemic, eat your heart out…wait.
It’s Memorial Day weekend and just about everyone will be out grilling some burgers. But have you ever thought about the science behind the food you’re eating (too much of)? Scientific American and NBC Learn have teamed up to bring you answers to the burning questions behind your holiday grillathon.
As you sear the meat and toast the buns, have you ever wondered why grilling beats boiling? Or why ketchup and mustard tend to separate, but mayonnaise does not? Or why a pickle lasts so long? The videos include a series on the hamburger and its symbiotic accompaniments—all part of the celebration of the International Year of Chemistry 2011.
Click through to watch!
Link | Image: Berkeley.edu
Linda Monach has embarked on a culinary adventure and is chronicling it on the blog Burgers Here and There.
A couple of years ago my parents moved in with us to help take care of our daughters as my husband and I juggled two stressful careers. My dad likes simple food and struggles with some of my more adventurous meals. This year, at Father’s day I made him his favorite dinner of hamburgers and pork and beans. That’s when inspiration hit – could I take the beloved burger and make it the vehicle for introducing my dad to new flavors? Indeed, looks like I can!
So, here’s the goal…create one burger recipe for every country in the world.
Monach is not trying to recreate the hamburgers of the world, but trying to put the flavors of the world’s traditional cuisines into each hamburger meal. She’s got several nations covered so far, all beginning with A. Link -via Metafilter
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On April 15, 1955, Ray Kroc opened his own McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois (seen below). While tons of people head to this so-called “first McDonald’s” every year, the fact is, the building standing there is not only not the first McDonald’s (Kroc actually opened the ninth location of the franchise), it’s not even the original building, but just a reconstruction. Even so, that spot of ground did have a huge impact on American life as we know it and spawned what was at one point the largest restaurant chain in the world –the title is now held by Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, etc.) and followed by Subway.
Image via ChicagoGeek [Flickr]
When I was a kid, I always thought whoever Mr. McDonald was, he must be super rich. As it turns out, Richard and Maurice McDonald, who started the original restaurant, only made $2.7 million on the deal. While that does seem like a good amount of cash, just think how much the restaurant is worth these days. To make matters worse, the brothers insisted on retaining the rights to their first restaurant in San Bernardino, so Ray opened a McDonald’s restaurant right by theirs and ran them out of business. Worse still, even though the original deal involved the brothers earning 0.5% of the chain’s annual revenues, Kroc refused to honor that part of the verbal agreement after the McDonald’s brothers refused to sell him their original restaurant and the land it stood on.
And it’s not like the McDonald’s Brothers didn’t do anything but open an everyday burger joint; if they did, Ray probably wouldn’t have been so interested in taking the whole thing over. They innovated many of the ideas that have made modern fast food restaurants so successful, including assembly line kitchens, simplistic menus and self-serve counters. The menus had nothing on them but hamburgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, potato chips, sodas, milkshakes and apple pies. Because things were so quick and efficient, prices were about half of what it cost to get a similar meal at a diner.
Image via _skynet [Flickr]
It wasn’t too long after Kroc took over completely that the chain expanded out of America, first to Canada, then Costa Rica, Panama, Japan, Europe and Australia. These days, there’s McDonald’s located all over the world. In fact, the image above shows just how widely spread they are in the U.S.
While this world-wide globalization has led to many negative views of the corporation, some people say the company has actually helped improve the standard of service in some areas of the world. For example, when McDonald’s opened in Hong Kong in 1975, it was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean public restrooms. Soon afterwards, customers began to demand the same from other restaurants in the area.
Whether McDonald’s has a positive or negative impact in the country it enters may be a matter of opinion, but one thing the restaurant takes great pride in is their localization of the menu based on the native tastes of the area. Some interesting menu items from around the world include:
Images via Weather Sealed, xetark [Flickr], Allan Reyes [Flickr],
Even in America, certain locations have their own specialty treats. The McLobster and McCrab are served seasonally throughout New England. And in the late 1990’s, Chicago locations offered a hamburger with barbecue sauce and Canadian bacon that was dubbed “the Beef Wennington” after a notable Chicago Bulls player.
Many of the company’s biggest successes were actually created locally by franchisees, including the Filet-O-Fish, the Big Mac and the Egg McMuffin. The Filet-O-Fish was made by a Cincinnati franchise owner who wanted to offer his Catholic customers a meal they could still eat on Fridays and during lent. Ray Kroc tried a similar idea at his original restaurant, but his Hula Burger, a sandwich a pineapple slice in place of meat was a huge flop.
As for the Big Mac, it was created by an early Pittsburgh franchiser who wanted to serve something adults would enjoy when feeding their kiddos at the restaurant. The corporate heads told him he could only create new menu items creating ingredients on the existing menu, which is where the Big Mac was born.
The Egg McMuffin was in a similar position as the Big Mac inventor, only he went ahead and added a new creation to the menu without contacting headquarters. The corporation was quite upset that he started selling the McMuffin without their blessing, but they quickly changed their minds when they saw how popular it was.
Image Via VirtualErn [Flickr]
It’s not only the menu that headquarters like to keep consistent. Locations are largely required to look similar to one another on the inside. That’s not to say there aren’t a few stand out locations though. The “Solid Gold McDonald’s” by the Rock and Roll of Fame is themed after fifties rock and roll. Victoria, British Columbia has a restaurant with a 24-carat gold chandelier and other fancy light fixtures (seen above). The McDonald’s in Stratford-upon-Avon has a very subtle design, as all buildings in the area are required to conform to the historic look of Shakespeare’s birthplace.
Whether you love McDonald’s or loathe it, there’s no arguing that the restaurant has had a huge impact on our society. Heck, Fast Food Nation has estimated that one of eight workers in America have been employed at the restaurant at some point of their lives. So you guys have any weird McDonald’s in your area? Maybe one with unique menu items or a strange design.
Image Via buschap [Flickr]
Sources Mental Floss #1, #2, Food Network Humor, Wikipedia #1, #2, #3
Fast food grease as art? Yep. Watch as artist Phil Hansen creates a huge replica of the Mona Lisa using nothing but grease squeezed from hamburger patties – and it only took him 10 double burgers to do it.
He didn’t just do this for fun, though… it’s actually an Arby’s ad.
Previously on Neatorama: Bruce Lee Speed Painting | Phil Hansen’s Influence: a Body Paint Art
