Someone has photographed McDonald’s food in 50 countries and the results are surprising

The what?​
McAtlas – A Global Guide to the Golden Arches is a ‘visual social anthropology of the largest restaurant chain in the world’. In layman’s terms, it’s the work of James Beard Award-winning photographer, writer and McDonald’s-ophile Gary He, who has traversed the globe snapping the various food available at the fast food giant.

We all know what a Big Mac looks like though...​
He’s book is not about the classic dishes we all know. Instead, he has shot the weird and wonderful food that is particular to a certain country and which often doesn’t cross any borders. Macaroni soup anyone?

OK, now I’m interested​
I thought that might tickle your fancy. He says that like many people, he often visited McDonald’s while overseas as it provides some form of culinary comfort blanket, and became fascinated by the different options available at what many people perceive to be a cookie-cutter fast food chain. It all started with an iftar meal during Ramadan in 2018 that he says ‘made me consider that perhaps the more interesting thing was not the consistency of the fries from country to country’. Fifty countries and six continents later (McDonald’s has yet to put its flag down in Antarctica) McAtlas was created.

Come on then, give me some crazy examples...​
One country’s ‘crazy’ is another’s perfectly usual, but the book does indeed show the interesting and varied dishes available across the world. The aforementioned macaroni soup, for example, can be found in Hong Kong and is pasta topped with ham in a bowl of beef or chicken broth usually eaten as a main breakfast course after a scrambled eggs and white toast starter. Then there’s the McArabia Chicken. Made with Arabic bread, grilled chicken patties, garlic mayo, lettuce, onion and tomato, the sandwich is joined in the UAE by the Grand Chicken - a Halal chicken patty, with tomato, shredded lettuce, emmental cheese and dijon mustard sauce, all held together by a soft bun with a corn grits topping. Other notable inclusions are the palta, a hamburger topped with crushed avocado that is sold in Chile; and the McBaguette - and you don’t need a GCSE in geography to know where that comes from.

Is there a sense of what they taste like?​
He has no claims to be a food critic, but he has ensured that his book is a fair reflection of the McDonald’s offer. Each item that was photographed was purchased from a McDonald’s restaurant and presented as it would appear to a customer. As He says: “no photo studio food styling tricks like using fake ingredients, and no avocados or cutting boards on the side to give the scene extra vibes. Just the items on a clean background."

It’s truly a book for fast food lovers then​
There’s more. Rather sensibly, as well as taking pictures of the food put in front of him, He also snapped some of the more unusual restaurants he encountered on his travels. These include a flying saucer shaped restaurant in Roswell, New Mexico, (pictured below) where characters are dressed as astronauts and there are light projections and a merch store; one located at one of Sweden’s most popular ski resorts that is only open during the winter months; and one that occupies a disused (obviously) DC-3 airplane that was inherited from a car dealership.

This is an education​
Funny you should say that, because the book is full of (Mc)nuggets of information that goes beyond nice food photography. The McArabia Chicken, for example, was created in the Middle East post-9/11 by McDonald’s franchisees in Saudi Arabia and neighbouring countries keen to demonstrate their restaurants were locally owned and operated. And, did you know that the Filet-O-Fish was the original localised menu item? The fishy burger was created by franchisee Lou Groen to meet the needs of the predominantly Roman Catholic population of Cincinnati, Ohio, that didn’t eat meat on Fridays. According to He’s book Ray Kroc, the man responsible for making McDonald’s the behemoth it is today, rejected the sandwich, but challenged Groen to a sales competition with his own creation, the pineapple-topped Hula Burger. The Filet-O-Fish won and the rest is history.

I’ll never see MCDonald’s in the same light again​
As He says: “If we are what we eat, then McDonald’s global menu is a portrait of humanity in the 21st century”. That thought might give some people indigestion, but it’s hard to argue with.

To pre order McAtlas, click here.​ ​