BACK IN THE ’70s and ’80s, the only thing that could stop me from eating those delicious McDonald’s french fries was the Hamburglar (while his accomplice Grimace was out stealing shakes). But in the early ’90s, health concerns led to a switch from frying with hearty beef tallow to vegetable oil, thereby changing the flavor and texture of the fries forever. Many say McDonald’s french fries haven’t been the same since. And they’re right, though McDonald’s fries still taste better than anyone else’s.
Ever wonder why? Despite the move to vegetable oil, McDonald’s was still using a certain amount of “beef flavoring.” Not that this revelation outraged health fanatics–the amount of cholesterol in the post-1990 fries is still much less than before. But it was a shock to the vegetarian and Hindu communities who until recently thought they were eating a meatless product in good conscience (and perhaps wondering themselves why the fries were so good).
With the publication of Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” last year–a scathing attack on the fast-food industry and culture–much attention was focused on the practices of giants like McDonald’s. One reader, Hitesh Shah, was particularly drawn to the chapter entitled, “Why the Fries Taste So Good.” Compared to other chapters in the book, this one is rather anodyne. (The sections on E. coli and Jack in the Box are the most gut-wrenching.) Still, Shah, a Jain who doesn’t eat meat, was surprised to read that animal products were used to make french fries, especially since McDonald’s had claimed to use 100 percent pure vegetable oil. An e-mail sent to Shah from the McDonald’s Home Office Customer Satisfaction Department soon clarified that “For flavor enhancement, McDonald’s french fry suppliers use a minuscule amount of beef flavoring as an ingredient in the raw product. . . .”
Minuscule or not, the e-mail spiraled into a class action lawsuit filed by Seattle attorney Harish Bharti on behalf of the Hindu community last year. As Schlosser explains in the afterword of the paperback edition of his book, the lawsuit alleged that “the chain had deliberately misled vegetarians about the content of its fries, causing great emotional damage and endangering the souls of Hindu consumers.” This in turn led to violent protests in India, where one McDonald’s restaurant was completely trashed and worse–a statue of Ronald McDonald was smeared with cow dung.
But McDonald’s wasn’t completely wrong either. The claim that their restaurants use 100 percent vegetable oil is true. The small amount of beef flavoring is added during the potato processing back at the plant. And the fries at McDonald’s restaurants in India didn’t even use this small bit of meat. Nevertheless, with statements (on the company website) that read, “If you visit McDonald’s anywhere in the world, the great taste of our world famous French Fries and Big Mac is the same,” and, “One Taste Worldwide,” you can see how the panic erupted.
Last month, McDonald’s finally agreed to pony up “$10 million to Hindu, vegetarian, and other groups whose charitable and educational activities are closely linked to the concerns of these consumers.” The corporation also apologized “for failing to provide the kind of information [Hindus and vegetarians] needed to make informed dietary decisions at our U.S. restaurants.” Finally, McDonald’s says it is “committed to doing a better job in the future,” has “enhanced its disclosures concerning the source of ingredients in its food products,” and has created a “Dietary Practice/Vegetarian Advisory Panel” to avoid future miscommunications and improve its marketing to specific groups.
How will this affect the McDonald’s french fry? If they’ve taken the first step away from beef tallow, would the next step be away from all animal products? And if so, what would that taste like? These are serious questions for non-vegetarian and non-Hindu consumers. And the importance of the fry cannot be underestimated. McDonald’s is the world’s largest fast-food chain, largely because of its signature golden french fry. Tampering with the side order could be disastrous.
Witness Burger King’s recent attempt to market a new fry. (Their secret was a crispier fry coated in potato starch.) Despite a few taste tests showing that people liked the new fries, Burger King never made any serious gains and quickly abandoned their multimillion dollar ad campaign and reverted to the old recipe. It was a mitigated disaster in the same league as the New Coke debacle.
So while the competition continues to try and figure out how to outdo the Golden Arches, McDonald’s needs to be wary of changing a good thing. It needs to reflect on its history.
McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc noted in his memoir that to him, the fry was “sacrosanct” and its preparation was “a ritual to be followed religiously.” As Schlosser writes in “Fast Food Nation,” “The success of Richard and Mac McDonald’s hamburger stand had been based as much on the quality of their fries as on the taste of their burgers. The McDonald brothers had devised an elaborate system for making crisp french fries. . . . McDonald’s cooked thinly sliced Russet Burbanks in special fryers to keep the oil temperature above 325 degrees.” When Kroc switched to frozen fries in 1966, cutting out the time employees spent peeling and slicing potatoes, customers didn’t notice.
Schlosser says the secret to the McDonald’s fry was neither the type of potato, nor the technology. Rather, it had to do with the cooking oil. “For decades, McDonald’s cooked its french fries in a mixture of about 7 percent cottonseed oil and 93 percent beef tallow. The mix gave the fries their unique flavor–and more saturated beef fat per ounce than a McDonald’s hamburger.” They were irresistible. So, is animal fat indispensable to great fries?
In search of advice (and with McDonald’s unavailable for comment), I recently paid a visit to the French steakhouse Les Halles (pronounced Lay-All), located just a few blocks from the White House. Les Halles’s french fries have (deservedly) won numerous awards. I sat down with the “director of operations,” Cyrille Brenac, to talk about the secret behind his frites.
“Fries, for us, are a religion,” he says in his thick French accent (he’s originally from outside Toulouse). “We have won awards in Miami, New York, and D.C. We take it very seriously. We pick the potatoes, a specific brand from a specific field. And all of them are fresh–we peel them, soak them, a machine cuts them, and then we cook them at a low temperature.” The word he uses is “blanchir,” the process of turning a potato from white to blonde at around 280 degrees for 15 minutes. “Then we lay them on a tray, and at the time of order, we fry them a second time (at 375 degrees), and add salt. Then we pile it on a plate like a mountain.” (And no, he didn’t offer any.)
The fries at Les Halles are then immediately brought to the table. “Longevity is a criteria,” says Brenac. Most experts agree that a good shelf life for fries is between 5 and 10 minutes. “If the fry does not last that long, the temperature is not high enough.” I then ask Brenac if his fries taste good because of beef tallow. “No, we use only peanut oil,” which is changed every day without exception.
Could McDonald’s use peanut oil? Brenac reminds me that “a lot of people are allergic to peanuts. We’ve had customers who ask us about this and we are very careful.” In other words, national or worldwide use of peanut oil, as delectable as that may be for most of us, could be a serious liability for a chain.
When asked what he thinks of McDonald’s french fries, Brenac says, “They are quite good, as I recall.” Better than Burger King’s? “Oh, no question,” he says matter-of-factly. “McDonald’s has much better fries than Burger King. They’re more crispy. Burger King’s fries are too oily, which means they probably aren’t cooking them at a high enough temperature.” He goes on, “They always say that kids speak the truth and my son, in fact, says he prefers McDonald’s over Burger King–but now, of course, he loves the fries here at Les Halles.”
With any luck, McDonald’s fries will remain unchanged. The menu will probably be a bit more clear about that whole “beef flavoring” thing, and that special panel will surely come up with ways to cater to the non-meat crowd (something Burger King has been steadily working on). And let’s face it, for McDonald’s the $10 million settlement is, in the words of Hyman Roth, “small potatoes.”
Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
