Fast food is local food, says the journalist who took photos of McDonalds all over the world

A few years ago, Gary was in a McDonald’s in a Moroccan village during the Islamic Holy Month of Ramadan when he had a Eureka moment.

The writer and photo journal, based in New York, noticed that the fast food joint for IFTAAR had a special menu item in which Muslims break the daily fast during the Ramadan.

“I saw this meal in which many local sweets and dates and a Harira soup and a dairy yoghurt drink included. And I just said to myself, ok, that’s very localized,” he said to me ” How it happens Host Nil Kӧksal.

“I couldn’t find anything about it online. And as a food journalist, I only said, how is it possible that the largest restaurant chain in the world did not document this somewhere? And so I just accepted it to myself.”

So was born McatlasHe is a new self-published photo book that the places and menu items of the ubiquitous fast food chain around the world, from a calm Japanese tea garden to a drive-thhru that is only accessible from skis in the Swedish mountains, shows.

“I don’t have a precise count, but I was definitely in hundreds of McDonald’s in 55 countries and six continents,” he said. “There is a lot to walk when you do so much travel. Fortunately, it’s balanced.”

Use a brand to tell a human story

He would like to clarify one thing: his book is neither financed nor approved by the McDonald’s Corporation.

“As a journalist, you want to tell stories that are sensible and assignable, right? And there is really no assignable brand in the world or in the world in the world as McDonald’s,” he said.

The Americans, he says, go the wrong assumption that they have seen them all when they have seen a McDonald’s.

But in reality he says that McDonald’s is aimed at various culinary cultures. There is McPoutine in Canada, McSpaghetti in the Philippines, Mcaloo Tikki in India and the McBaguette in France, to name just a few.

“I think a lot of people say, yes, when I’m overseas, I want to try the local meal. Well, that’s the point of the book, or that this is local food,” he said.

“Without these very localized menu items – some of these rice dishes, macaroni dishes or what they – all over the world (McDonald’s) could not have survived and thrive as they have. I mean, they are the biggest for one reason.”

‘Starbucess’ and other globaling adventures

Alex C. Park, a journalist based in California, who wrote extensively about the global fast food industry, recently argued in the New York Times that Fast Food was the best way to have a really authentic local meal experience on trips .

“Often, when we are very deliberately looking for such authentic experience, we end up in a place where we are surrounded by people like us,” Park told CBC.

But with a dairy queen or Tim Hortons, he says, there are local people who live their everyday life.

“There is this type of performance element. It is a kind of place that is in this country, as strange that sounds,” said Park.

There are other globetrotters that he and parks take – Youtubers who travel the worldand travel Blogs that check KFC locations around the world.

A blogger who documents the name Winter documents his Mission to visit every Starbucks in the world – a persecution that he calls Starbucksing. He claims to have visited more than 15,000 in the USA and Canada and another 5,000 overseas.

Winter argues that the coffee chain is usually where people live and work. How can you better see a better place as it is?

Tourists, especially from the USA and Canada, have an imagination of how life is in other parts of the world that do not correspond to reality, says Park.

“I think it is too easy to exotit people abroad and think that they have other wishes and wishes from us,” he said.

“Not everything about everyday life in (another) country is exciting and funny and interesting and different and there for our amusement. Sometimes it is Only a kind of prosaic and usually in a way that may be recognizable to us. “

The costs of globalization

While Park says that Fast Food can show us what we all have in common, it does not mean that everything is sunshine and roses.

He has concerns about global capitalism that creates a monoculture and the way the rise of global fast food affects the local economy and environments.

Brazil, for example, has Become the world’s largest producer of soybeansIn large environmental costs so that it can deliver massive poultry, pork and beef farms in Europe and Asia.

“I certainly don’t want to glorify fast food,” he said.

Nevertheless, according to the park, Park has countless people in different countries that he visited To kick the local cuisine who are looking for tourists with enthusiasm, but is banal and normal for them.

Because he is working on it Mcatlas Has brought him to some really unexpected – and even magical places. A memory that stands out was his December trip to the McSki, which was the only ski in the world in the Lindsvall ski area in Sweden.

“The snow was still fresh. It was like grinding on the floor and you had to go to a window,” he said. “I really love that.”

Then the McDonald’s is embedded in a Japanese tea garden in Singapore.

“It will be the most peaceful McDonald’s eating that you will ever have in your life, you know and watch this Koi pond around with fish and turtles while eating an McSpicy sandwich.”

When asked about his experience to try a McPoutine in Canada, he hesitated.

“Let’s just say it is appropriate,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything to make my friends north.”