I was staring at the fast-food combo list at a local chain and noticed how enticing they looked on the full-color, jumbo-sized placard’s that show every conceivable combination of monosaturated fat man can devise.
I asked myself, will my end product look like the shown product? Will the preliminary impression out-shine the reality of what’s handed to me? Will the burger look like the Photoshop version that was photographed in a studio with a fog machine and vapor bottle to glaze-some-glisten on the burger fatty, I mean patty?
Hungry, inquiring minds want to know. They number the fast-food combo’s one thru thirteen. My favorite Thai restaurant has menus items one thru ninety-two, and I usually order the menu number in Spanish just for ethnic diversity since I’m ¼ Norwegian; ¼ Swede; ¼ English and ¼ Welsh. That’s four quarter’s and no basketball. I also eat beef jerky made from animals I’ve shot.
Well the fast food order was a healthy let down from the picture I saw that sold me on ordering the perfect looking meal. It was slow delivery and 1/3 smaller to make up for it.
All this dietary deception is about to change. No more mister eat whatever they throw down! I’m on the fast-food, slow death rampage. I want food that’s wysiwyg! (like software). Meaning: What-you-see-is-what-you-get!
My next trip was to Red Robin. Is that a rare bird? Bad joke. I’m ready for food battle. No prisoner’s taken. Which means I will send food back to the kitchen all night long if that’s what it takes. So I asked the kind waitress if the burger I’m ordering will look exactly like the menu picture? A replicant of the high-gloss image.
She said well…um…probably close…um…let me ask my manager.
20 minutes later the manager, waitress, and cook brought out the most amazing looking Blue Ribbon Burger I have ever seen and layed it before me like I was a wealthy sheep baron. You say you have 2,500 head of cattle? I have that many sheep dogs. Anyway, the manager and two cooks hand built this hamburger to look not only like the menu, but better! It was a work of culinary artisanship. Everything edible had its perfect place in between the bun. It was wysiwyg.
Sorry, no poultry-in-motion here, this is beef…baby. It was executed perfectly (Not referring to the cow).
There was justice and equity in the land of fast and furious dining.
Sometimes you have to ask the hard question: Will I eat what I see, or will this be an experimental meal gone wrong?
I love food advertising it is art really. The food in fast food restaurants never looks like the ad that I look at! One of the many reasons not to eat fast food I guess.
True and true. Nobody forces your car to turn into the “drive thru window” lane.