The Farewall Tour Of The McDonald's Menu Part 3: The Big Mac

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I've made the decision not to eat any thing from Mcdonald's anymore once I've eaten every regular medium meal from their standard menu for one last time. Now opportunity has not knocked for me recently, but tonight my mother, who I have been looking after in Essex exile since she has been discharged from hospital asked again for a Chicken Mcnuggett meal.

Now her taste buds have gone really askew since being discharged. Before she would have turned her nose at anything linked to the Big M. Now however the Mcnuggett and my mother have been suddenly entwined.

The first time she asked, I I you understand refused. Couldn't leave her alone in the house whilst I took the car on the five minute journey to the nearest Mcdonald's, off the M11 just outside Epping. But this Sunday night was different. I could do it.

The Mcdonald's itself is an interesting place given that it was once a pub. Interesting in that how many churches have closed down and now pubs have followed suit. Not sure exactly what this means but the world certainly has changed since I was a child.

Of course I too was going to have a McDonald's. I looked at the menu and the next one on the list was a Big Mac. You know despite what the people at Big M will tell you by calling their most expensive offerings by this name the Big Mac is truly their signature dish. When most people have a picture of a McDonald's meal in their heads it's the Big Mac people have in their minds. It is after all Big and Enticing and well, has that image of America.

For the most part when I have been in a McDonald's the Big Mac medium meal is what I choose. For no other reason than I know there's less chance of having to wait than if I'd ordered the Fillet O Fish or, Heaven forbid, the Veggie Burger.

But the sting, or should I say aftertaste in the tale is this. When I've described a McDonald's meal in this blog as like a cheap bestseller, enjoyable but quickly forgotten, it's the Big Mac meal I'm talking about.

There is though one other thing. Like a fading Hollywood movie star the Big Mac has lost some of it's Americana glamour. All of a sudden it looks old.

This meal did not change that.

Of Faded Burger Glory

What really surprised me as I ate this Big Mac meal for the final time was that I knew I wasn't going to miss it.

My mother liked her Chicken Mcnuggets though.

Until the next time.