The Burger Battle

for this unit named birth in our food for thought class we spent our time learning about the industrialization of food and how it affects the worlds diets and cultures. I learned about Michael Pollan's philosophy and observations of how foods and diets change because of the industrial revolutions.

so for this project my class had to compare a food made at home to one made at a restaurant and describe both dishes with the most detail and give a conclusion of which one better.

for this project i decided to compare a burger from McDonalds to one grilled at home. the reason why I chose to do MacDonald for the project is because it seems to be the stereotype for fast food chain with paying next to nothing to employees giving lackluster unhealthy products in next to no time after you order them, not to mention the seemingly endless amount of mistakes and contravenes.

for the burger made at home it's very simple when it comes to prep and cooking. first we took all the Kirkland patties that we bought out to thaw for around half an hour. then dried then gave them all a simple pepper salt and garlic rub. then we started a medium sized fire on the grill closed the grill then left them there to cook for half an hour. as for what was put on the burger put on a single slice of Kirkland cheddar cheese and tried it with and without Rounds barbecue sauce

as for how it tasted it was not the juiciest burger with a three quarters of an inch well done patty with a one sixteenth of an inch and a light airy one inch for the bottom bun and one and a half inch bun for the top. as for the texture the burger was pretty dry, chewy, tender, but dense. as for the bun it's nothing new felt just like a piece of white bread. for the Barbecue sauce it did kind of make up for the patty dryness but it still left you tongue dry. for the cheese it was dry on the edges ad was not smooth like you would expect.

The flavor is a different story first of all the patty had a smoky flavor to it with a small bit of pungency because of the garlic. As for the cheese it was pungent having a strong sharp flavor. The bun was unremarkable as it is pretty much white bread.

The McDonald on the other hand wasn’t as good. For the meat it was sweet salty tough and chewy. The cheese was tasteless slimy and. The pickles were tasteless and were just there to take up space. The onions were the best part being crunchy but chopped for no reason. And the ketchup was passable but overpowered the rest of the toppings

Out of the two options i prefer the home made one nostalgia might have had an effect for this choice but the McDonald's burger is nowhere near as good when it comes to texture flavor balance and nutrition this shows how Michael Pollens statement about how restaurants are focused more on quantity than quality as the food is cheap made in less than a minute and is not something to be enjoyed if the ketchup was removed the balance of flavors would be a lot better