lovin' it?

Cathy2 wrote:I often get European visitors who will advise me they do not like McDonald's with an air of superiority. I advise them I do eat at McDonald's but hardly every day or every week. I treat it as an option amongst a large playing field of other options. All these thinly veiled anti-American statements really chill me sometimes.

Being anti-McDonalds does not entail being anti-American. I avoid eating at McDonalds because I dislike the food and because I prefer to support small local restaurants with my food money as much as possible. Neither of these motivations is anti-American.

Cathy2 wrote:I had a Estonian, who mirrored much of the Croatian-Italien's behavior. She added orange cheese to her list of dislikes, before she ever tasted it. The only orange cheese I know is Cheddar, which seems to be a uniquely American product.

Cathy2 wrote:I am just as supportive of any small restaurant as anyone on this board. I refuse to dislike McDonald's on principle. I eat there, I know what I like and I won't give up my Chowist credentials over it.

Communist parties are very wonderful things. They lead the masses in the fight against the wicked Americans. Do you realize that if we didn't fight on with the revolutionary struggle all of us would have to drink Coca-Cola every day?

Cordwainer Smith, "The Instrumentality of Mankind"

Cathy2 wrote:I refuse to dislike McDonald's on principle.

LAZ wrote:I do agree that some of the attacks on McDonald's are attacks against capitalism and, thereby, the American way of life. As a symbol of America, McD's is such a big, fat target. ...
There are times I look forward to going to McDonald's. When I'm overseas or even in a strange American city, I find the sight of those golden arches inordinately comforting. I know that behind them, wherever I am, I'll find smiling faces, clean toilets and Coca-Cola...
Yes, I do drink Coca-Cola every day.

Rich4 wrote:Discussions with Europeans about McDonald's is really more about politics and rarely about the food.

Antonius wrote:

Rich4 wrote:Discussions with Europeans about McDonald's is really more about politics and rarely about the food.

And what could there possibly be to discuss at any length about the food? There is simply no way one can counter the criticism of McDonald's products which addresses the fact that the(ir base materials) are of poor quality or rendered so by the complex processing procedures to which they are subjected. Beyond this, the food relies solely on the universally appealing but easily - and in this case thoroughly -- abused qualities of fattiness, saltiness and sweetness.

Antonius wrote:Shovellin' it.

Rich4 wrote:To the extent that Europeans criticize McDonalds while not criticizing locally owned fast food chains such as "Quick", they are really criticizing America. It's easy to blame a foreign concept for corrupting their society while not addressing any real issues behind it. I'm not trying to make any excuses for McDonald's, I'm just tired of hearing Europeans complain while sending their kids off for fries.

Antonius wrote:Clearly, LAZ, you do not make the claim that all attacks on McDonald's are necessarily intended as attacks on capitalism and America and your observation that some attacks are likely so intended is surely correct. Given that your claim is wisely measured, it seems you are perhaps willing to agree or concede that opposition to the Golden Arches can be motivated by something other than mindless anti-Americanism and possibly even be considered and reasonable, even if not correct from your standpoint.

Antonius wrote:And without doubt, much can be said for reliably clean restrooms, though where I travel in Europe, finding clean facilities is no more difficult - in most areas far less so - than in Chicago.

Antonius wrote:My reaction to seeing McDonald's and other such chain-restaurants in foreign lands with real food cultures is, however, to feel a certain degree of despair and embarrassment. Of course, at least parts of the populations of these other lands are accomplices in the spread of what many view as a cultural cancer, but there is no doubt about who invented and remains preeminent in the fields of mass-marketing and fast food.

Antonius wrote:There is to my mind no question about whose business community has most shrewdly developed the view that valued cultural traditions of other peoples are to be seen merely as impediments to the spread of "freedom" and the concomitant economic exploitation of their societies.

gleam wrote:Furthermore, anti-corporatism is NOT anti-Americanism. Corporatism represents American virtues about as much as McDonalds represents American haute cuisine.

Rich4 wrote:

Antonius wrote:Shovellin' it.

Super size that.

LAZ wrote:Frankly, I save my despair and embarrassment for our nation's more egregious flaws, such as our current presidential administration and its foreign policy. No one anywhere is forced to eat at McDonald's. If no one ate there, it wouldn't exist. I don't believe that people are sheep -- mass marketing urges; it doesn't compel.

LAZ wrote:You mean all those Europeans who came over here and just about wiped out Native American culture?

LAZ wrote:If McDonald's rises over "real food culture," it isn't because of advertising.

LAZ wrote:A Big Mac is haute cuisine compared to a pie floater.

LAZ wrote:And who's to say what's a "real food culture"?

Antonius wrote:Luckily, massively-funded advertising campaigns (e.g. I'm shovin' it) are not carefully researched and artfully targeted so as to get people to feel they need to buy a given product, whether it is good (for them) or not, whether they can afford it or not.

Luckily, people around the world, most especially Americans, are immune from being manipulated for economic and political ends by small groups in whose hands extraordinary levels of political and economic power are concentrated.

LAZ wrote:And who's to say what's a "real food culture"?

Antonius wrote:Presumably people who think about food in ways that transcend the most basic level of 'tastiness' and can appreciate the difference between food that has been developed in a complex interrelationship with its broader cultural setting as a whole and food that has been designed solely for marketing purposes. Presumably people who appreciate cuisines which delight in variety and wholesomeness and frugality and, occasionally, excess, when that's possible and appropriate, be they Asian or European or African or American. Presumably people who understand that there exist real food cultures and understand too how fundamentally they differ from the pseudo-cuisine of modern corporate fast-food that is designed for one thing and one thing alone: maximum corporate profit.

LAZ wrote:A Big Mac is haute cuisine compared to a pie floater.

Antonius wrote:Is a meat-pie floating in a bowl of pea-soup in and of itself clearly more objectionable than any of the specifically McDonald's creations, such as their breakfast sandwiches?

Mike G wrote:Moderator voice on:

Okay, we're getting into a double-sized patty of discussion about the nature of corporate capitalism with a thin slice of bright orange food chat on it. Let's bring it back to a discussion that's mainly about food, not generally about economics and geopolitics.

LAZ wrote:Isn't this the Non-Food Chat section?

Hi,

Actually, a Big Mac really hits the spot sometimes. I love the filet-o-fish, which disapeered for a while 10 years ago when they pushed an 'Adult' menu with a reworked fish sandiwch. When the fries were cooked in beef suet, rather than pure vegetable oil now, darn good.

For breakfast, I will eat the calorically sensible Egg McMuffin for 290 calories. When I don't care, or this meal doubles for lunch, then it is their Steak Bagel sandwich. Forget about McGriddles, maple syrup in the bun, yuck!

When I am abroad and feeling lonely, a visit to McDonald's sets my mood straight.

I often get European visitors who will advise me they do not like McDonald's with an air of superiority. I advise them I do eat at McDonald's but hardly every day or every week. I treat it as an option amongst a large playing field of other options. All these thinly veiled anti-American statements really chill me sometimes.

c8w wrote:Would you believe, for example, that the Fillet-o-Fish is the most popular item with various conservative Muslims I know?

Antonius wrote:Unshackled

LAZ wrote:Frankly, I save my despair and embarrassment for our nation's more egregious flaws, such as our current presidential administration and its foreign policy. No one anywhere is forced to eat at McDonald's. If no one ate there, it wouldn't exist. I don't believe that people are sheep -- mass marketing urges; it doesn't compel.

Luckily, the interests of specific corporations and of the major corporate community as a whole play no role in the making of foreign policy.

Luckily, massively-funded advertising campaigns (e.g. I'm shovin' it) are not carefully researched and artfully targeted so as to get people to feel they need to buy a given product, whether it is good (for them) or not, whether they can afford it or not.

Some of us dont believe merely massively-funded marketing campaigns themselves
are sufficient to get people to buy products. As for whether things are good
for them - lots of things arent good for one, but we do it anyway, because we
*like* them. Its probably good for me to eat green veggies and not good for me
to eat mostly red meat, but I still eat red meat and not green veggies. That has
nothing to do with marketing, its what I like (and I didnt even see the Beef
Industry ads until I was well past the age where I was already fond of
beef - though I personally think the "Beef, because the West wasnt won
on Garden Salad" is one of the finest and funniest marketing campaigns
ever produced (whether true or not

Luckily, people around the world, most especially Americans, are immune from being manipulated for economic and political ends by small groups in whose hands extraordinary levels of political and economic power are concentrated.

I dont agree people around the world are being manipulated to eat Mcdonalds
or drink Coke either, but anyway

LAZ wrote:If McDonald's rises over "real food culture," it isn't because of advertising.

What then, pray tell? The quality and exquisite taste of their product? Certainly, it wouldn't have to do with the massively-funded advertising campaigns, the ugly labour practices, the use of poor products bought in enormous quantities from giant agri-business that allow them to undercut all competitors...*

So then, it must be the delectable combination of squishy white bread-product, gently cradling the savoury and artfully formed rissole of fatty grey meat-product, lovingly blanketed with a sunny slice of All-American orange cheese-product and accompanied by a medley of the freshest and most flavourful crudites and, lest we forget, the modest slather of a very special and not insufficiently processed mayonnaise-like sauce-product. Some may find such a food-product tasty but only a corporate-spokesperson could seriously -- if quite disingenuously -- try to argue it is good. These things are not hamburgers, they are not even cheaply made hamburgers, they are industrially produced hamburger-products.

So you think. Others happen to disagree.

First, that whole first paragraph of yours... the "massive ad budget, poor labor
practices, undercutting other businesses"... most people happen not to care
about that one whit, not while looking for a meal. You might, others might, it
might make a huge difference to you what someones political beliefs or
business practices are when you consume a meal. For others, a meal is
just a meal - as long as it is cheap and good, thats about all that matters.
In the general picture, I dont think all those reasons affect the food decisions
of most people at all (I know they hardly ever affect mine). I may not agree
with the loony policies of Ben & Jerry or Oberweis - but I will personally
consume both ice-creams with gusto, if I think theyre good (and a good
deal). Thats just me, of course, not neccesarily all the more politically
correct in this group or elsewhere - but I happen to think its the majority
view

Second - Mcdonald's burgers, to a lot of people, *can* be tasty. And they are
quick. And they are cheap. And convenient. That is more than enough for
most - and for many most of the time. I grew up in a city where there
was no Mcdonalds in my teen years - and yet people ate burgers, all
the time, and they were *much* worse than Mcdonald's most of the
time. Before Mcdonald's arrived there was much anticipation, and huge
lines when it did actually arrive. That didnt have much to do with
advertising, really - it was more word of mouth than anything else.

LAZ wrote:A Big Mac is haute cuisine compared to a pie floater.

Is a meat-pie floating in a bowl of pea-soup in and of itself clearly more objectionable than any of the specifically McDonald's creations, such as their breakfast sandwiches?

I havent had a pie floater, but I *like* Mcdonad's breakfast sandwiches. So
there

LAZ wrote:And who's to say what's a "real food culture"?

Presumably people who think about food in ways that transcend the most basic level of 'tastiness' and can appreciate the difference between food that has been developed in a complex interrelationship with its broader cultural setting as a whole and food that has been designed solely for marketing purposes. Presumably people who appreciate cuisines which delight in variety and wholesomeness and frugality and, occasionally, excess, when that's possible and appropriate, be they Asian or European or African or American. Presumably people who understand that there exist real food cultures and understand too how fundamentally they differ from the pseudo-cuisine of modern corporate fast-food that is designed for one thing and one thing alone: maximum corporate profit.

Food culture? Bah. As the Pope might have said (thru John Cleese in Monty
Python), "I may not know much about culture, but I know what I like"
People who think they know whatever, presumably because theyre
"cosmopolitan" or "well-travelled" or "multi-cultural" or whatever, theyre
entitled to their opinion, of course - opinions, as someone once said, are
like hotmail accounts (and something else I wont mention), everyone has one
Some of us prefer not to go by what the cultural-police think

There exist food cultures, in certain countries going back a thousand years.
But many of the younger generation even in those countries *want* burgers
and fries, and like it to be washed down by Coke. Of course there are several
old stick-in-the-muds even in those countries who think this is a terrible
thing, and people are abandoning the "good old ways" But this didnt
start with Mcdonald's. Just because an older generation thinks things have
always been a certain way (in food or other matters), it doesnt mean most
of the younger generation wants it to stay that way. Again, even before
Mcdonald's arrived, burgers were very popular in the city I grew up in -
even though they were crappy burgers, much worse than Mcdonald's.
They might have been indigenously produced burgers, maybe the people
who ran the burger-joints used organic food and/or used good business
practices - most of us didnt know and didnt care, we just wanted burgers
and we ate em there (even though they were crappy burgers mostly,
worse than Mcdonald's when it finally arrived, and more expensive than
Mcdonald's too). Of course when Mcdonald's finally arrived, people
switched to it in droves. Thats because it was better and cheaper than
the alternative. That is usually more than enough.

Many know about the authentic food culture of the city and country. Many know
about the great deal of value the cultural police might put on "frugality" and
all the rest of that nonsense. To a lot of people, taste, availability and
affordability trumps all of that when they have a choice.. And that is a very
valid opinion to hold, IMHO. Sometimes a burger-fries-and-coke is just a
burger-fries-and-coke, not a political statement about the abandoning of
a century-long food culture and giving in to American Cultural Imperialism


c8w

Antonius

___
* See further Ed's post.