In another thread, the OP, lissener, cites McDonald’s french fries as one of the most wonderful foods on the planet. He is of course entirely correct. McDonald’s french fries are amazingly delicious. If my doctor didn’t frighten me so much, I’d eat McDonald’s fries every day and end up weighing 900 pounds and be one of those people who get carted to the hospital on a flat bed truck. If McDonald’s had a meal deal where instead of getting any sandwich at all you got two orders of fries and a drink I bet it’d sell. What’s sort of fascinating about it is that the REST of their food is pretty mediocre. Their hamburgers aren’t much more tasty than the paper wrappers they’re served in.
But why is it that McDonald’s french fries are so heavenly and other fast food chain fries are basically deep-fried shit? I haven’t eaten at Burger King in a long time but as I recall, their fries were absolutely God-awful. A few months ago I was in a small town visiting a customer and the only food to be had was A&W. The burger was pretty good but the fries tasted as if they’d just cut up drinking straws and thrown them in a deep fryer. Then, when my buddy came up from California, he wanted to have sopme Harvey’s (a Canadian chain.) So we went, and Jesus, their fries were awful.
I guess not ALL other fast food fries are shit, but they’re certainly not McDonald’s.
Why are McDonald’s fries like little fried orgasms?
Why don’t the other fast food chains do what they do?
First, permit me to bow down and worship before your word smithing. I may never refer to McD’s fries as anything but little fried orgasms again.
In response to your question: little fried orgasms are made of the holy trifecta of human food, ie carbs, fat and salt, joined together with the miracle of modern food science. Please read this Excerpt From Eric Schlosser’s book ‘Fast Food Nation’
I’ve heard unsubstantiated rumours that they put sugar as well as salt on them. I don’t know if that’s it, but there is definitely something about those little artery-hardeners.
Harvey’s fries are a travesty - they used to have fries that were almost as good as what I made at home, and then they changed how they make them so they are just as bad as everyone else’s fries.
Umm, errr, have you had them recently? Now, they used to be fantastic, when fired in beef fat. Then they tried beef flavoring and a crisco -like fat. Now they have trans-fat free oil and are entirely vegan.
However, one secret is that they age their taters in cool dry air, which increases sugar content. Oddly, this was a case of serendipity, since the original McD’s just happened to store their taters out on what amounted to their back porch, in a cool, dry climate.
I have had duck-fat fries in a upscale restaurant, and they were fantastic.
Yeah, they’re still OK but when the lard was around, those were the days! I don’t mind Wendy’s Biggie fries, but I pretty much have to dip them in a Frosty, so I’m not sure I know what they taste like plain.
Really? Their ingredients list is less than explicit about that - it says it has natural beef flavoring. This is flagged with a “wheat and milk derivatives” note but that’s typically listed for allergen purposes rather than to convince anyone of the vegan nature of the food. I can’t find anything by Googling that says they went vegan on the fries except for the ones in India after the lawsuit over the hidden real-beef flavor.
I’ve never understood the cultlike following of Mickey D’s fries, they seem mediocre at best
Now, Wendy’s fries, OTOH, are my favorite, they’re thicker cut and have both a nice crispy outside and a soft interior, it’s like eating strips of baked potato, rather than warm potato sticks that are Mickey’s fries
Burger King fries are just average as well
My French Fry preferences are (most to least)
Duston’s Market (Dover, NH) Potato Wedges, nicely seasoned, crispy seasoned exterior, soft, warm interior, MMMMM, good!
Wendy’s fries
Burger King fries (they have a nice seasoned exterior)
McDonald’s fries
I think this brings up what amounts to the major disconnect between people on what makes a good fry.
Some people(like me) like the skinny, shoestring, dipped in beef fat fry.
You like a steak fry, thick, very much potato tasting inside. I, personally, hate a fry which has mealy insides. Well, hate is too strong a word. I dislike them. They’re OK for what they are, I sometimes eat them, but they aren’t in the same class with shoestring fries/chips like you got in England with fish some 25-50 years ago. Not in the same universe.+
McDonald’s is a solid fry. My main criterion for what makes a good fry is that it does not require a condiment. A condiment (such as ketchup or malt vinegar) may heighten the experience, but is not necessary. In this I really think McDonald’s succeeds. However, my tastes have shifted more towards the thinly cut style that is made from fresh potatoes and reserves the potato skin on the outside. Fries that look like this. (Those happen to be duck fat fries, but it’s not a requirement for me.) They have a more potato-y taste that I enjoy, but both are good examples of their respective styles.
I’m all about the steak fry. A local pub has the best goddamn fries I’ve ever eaten. Couple that with the best goddamn hamburger I’ve ever had (apart, possibly, from home-grilled burgers), and we go there way too much. THeir fries are big thick steak fries, not mealy but fluffy inside, crisp and salty on the outside. Delicious as all fuck.
I can’t taste any appreciable difference between McDonald’s and Wendy’s fries. I actually like Wendy’s slightly more – they’re a little larger and taste fresher – but both are perfectly acceptable (the less said about Burger King fries, the better; they taste like dishwashing detergent is added to the oil).
But neither are good as the fries at Five Guys Hamburgers, which are fried in peanut oil. And the best fries I ever had was years ago on the pier at Old Orchard Beach, Maine (I went back last year, but couldn’t find the place that sold them).
My favorite fast-food fries are the waffle fries from Chick-fil-A.
The McD’s fries are decent, but to me they’re in a different category than other fries. Other fries seem to be french-fried potatoes. To me the McD’s fry seems to be some sort of artificial creation which may or may not be derived from a potato.
The McDonalds brothers themselves ran a nice little restaurant in the desert when they first started and people loved their fries especially. It took a man by the name of Ray Kroc to realize the potential and leverage it. His first attempted restaurant transplant into Illinois was a partial failure because the fries did not taste the same as at the original conditions at the first restaurant in the west. Food scientists were brought in and they found that the storing conditions of the raw potatoes were not the same same they built big bins with blowers and humidity control to partially cure the potatoes were cut and fried. That solved the problem and McDonalds uses similar pre-preprocessing techniques on an industrial scale today to make them taste the way they do.
