Is this the dawn of “gotcha” cooking? A talented chef in Los Angeles managed to trick food writers into praising McDonald’s ingredients through the cunning method of rearranging them into completely new dishes, the Guardian reports. Chef Neal Fraser, a former Top Chef Masters contestant, told the group of 40 foodies invited to a special dinner that he was using “experimental” ingredients.
The dishes included chilled avocado soup, spicy meatballs, and a coffee custard dessert, all made with ingredients that normally go into McDonald’s menu items. “I just hope no one hits me,” he said before the event. Fraser’s gourmet creations appeared to be a hit, with the diners clearing nearly every plate in the five-course meal, reports the OC Register, which notes that McDonald’s execs—who paid Fraser an undisclosed fee—watched the event on a live feed.
A blog post at Eater is critical of Fraser for what it views as a corporate “scam.” It cites a litany of problems with McDonald’s, from labor issues to nutritional issues to the sourcing of ingredients, and calls the stunt “shocking and disturbing for a number of reasons.”
I can’t stand fancy food. If the food has to be arranged I’ll pass.
Meat and potato and a veg. No gravy please.
I remember when I was a kid I was at a truck stop and saw
people getting gravy on their fries. Each one fatter than the next.
Oh and fruit pie for dessert. But don’t eat the crust. It’s pure fat.
OK I eat some of the top lattice crust. No ice cream on the desert.
That’s like two deserts. Cream is pure fat.
The Czarina dragged me to a “Bio” Hotel restaurant once (local owners, yada yada) for “slow food”.
If you’ve ever had tea in a cup and saucer, LIFT the cup and LOOK at that little indent in the saucer to hold the cup still.
THAT was the size of their “soup bowl.”
Needless to say, she learned to appreciate
“
slowREAL food” permanently.“Bio portions” is now a joke around the castle.
They should had some glasses of Vin jaunt infused with camel piss to swirl, sniff, sip on and critique. That woulda been a real hoot
The blogger who claimed this was just a “scam” is from the same ilk who believes a burger that costs $50 must by definition be better than one that costs $3.00. These are pretentious ass wipes who are not into food for food’s sake but for the ambiance where beautiful people can eat with beautiful utensils and plates.
Secret ingredient = Big Mac secret sauce. I wonder how he used the sesame seed bun?
A foodie critic (and a hell of an oxymoron as well) is just a snob in disguise. Who really pays attention to the pretentious jerks? Food is food unless it’s peas or cooked brussell sprouts which I hate.
Food critics eat one helluva lot more Midkey Dees than they’ll ever admit. Sucks to have a worthless degree and no friends.
“…a litany of problems with McDonald’s, from labor issues to nutritional issues to the sourcing of ingredients…”
Give up, McDonald’s. It’s not about food, it’s about free enterprise.
And Chairman Sanders will soon have us fighting for black-market cabbage out of the back.of a deuce and a half, so sell that burger while you’ve got it.
Virtue signalists typically are suckers and boobs.
The only “shocking and disturbing” thing here is that liberal’s disdain for McDonalds was proven to be an elitist prejudice based on a lie. Food critics down, now, on to the art critics!
Thank God you can still get a Premium Draft* Bud Light for only $15.00 at the Super Bowl…
😛
(* – pronounced “draught”)
I hope he used that six year old Happy Meal as part of the feast!
I’ve been to places that put the sqiggles on the plate & and arrange the food into sculptures. Two hundred dollars for three asparagus spears,a gum ball size lump of flesh & half a red potato. You’re simply paying for the opportunity to tell people that you’ve eaten at whatever stuffy gyp joint is hot right now. Total bs & the people who rave about the quality of this scam are pompous dupes.
A number of years ago at some friends for super bowl, my buddy made carnitas or similar and used some more traditional cuts of meat. Tongue or organ meat, I forget exactly.
Everyone loved it, the whole batch nearly gone, he exposed the ingredients. There were some not so happy campers when they found out what they were eating, I saw some normally rational people get extremely upset.
A lot of people won’t eat tongue. I guess they don’t want to taste something that might be tasting them back…
😛
From “City Slickers”,
“You ain’t gonna get any nouveau, amandine, thin crust, bottled water, sauteed city food. Food’s brown, hot, and plenty of it.”
“A blog post at Eater is critical of Fraser for what it views as a corporate “scam””
Awwww. . . did da poor widdle foodie critic get called out for the pretentious fraud that he is??
@Joan…you do realize that eating fat doesn’t make you fat right? The sugar in your pie is far worse than the fat in the crust. Diet is far more complicated than not eating fat.
Joan, there’s a french dish called poutine, it’s french fries with brown gravy over the fries then topped with cheese curds. I’m passing on this dish when going to Quebec in October.
As for the “expensive/pretentious” food being commented on, I have taken classes from a chef who cooks and creates those dishes, you discover that the raw ingredients are typically extremely expensive to begin with (New Zealand butter which is brought in under international allotment and known for its fat content, wild pine mushrooms which are hand forged for about two weeks a year, ditto Spot Prawns, Madagascar Vanilla, Maldon Sea Salt, etc).
The raw ingredients definitely are not what you find at the grocery store but are highly specialized which is one level of cost.
The second aspect is time, some of the recipes I’ve made take three days to create due to slow braising, curing, cooling, aging etc. None of them are on the table quickly.
Lastly is volume of ingredients for seemingly simple components…the little “drops” of sauce may have taken an entire rasher of bacon and a day and a half of work and they are only one tiny component of six different pieces which go on the plate.
It may not be something you like but having been exposed to what goes into making it, the “crazy” prices make more sense.
What’s shocking and disturbing is how many pretentious, phony, so called Experts there are out there being worshiped by other phony pretentious douche nozzles.
Right Brian, on all counts.
@ old_oaks – Brilliant! Genius!
I’ve done something similar with booze. I got fed up with booze snobs who insist on high-end liquors. So for years now I’ve been pouring Vodka City brand vodka into Grey Goose and similar high-end bottles and pouring Bathtub Gin into Bombay Sapphire bottles. My booze-snob friends TO THIS DAY have still not caught on to my switcheroo.
Ignorant, pretentious, trendy lemmings, every one of ’em.
Some people live to eat, some eat to live. I have no problem with foodies, but that’s not me because I’m in the “eat to live” category and I just don’t particularly enjoy a gourmet dining experience. So I can go to a baseball game and enjoy a hot dog and a beer while my foodie friends pass their time on fine dining experiences, we are all happy, and it’s all good.
@Mansfield L,FCGF: Remind me never to let you change the oil on my Rolls-Royce…
?
I worked in the Ft. Myers Mess Hall in high school in the late 60s.
FUCK restaurant food!
And I became a plumber who (occasionally) worked in restaurant kitchens.
FUCK restaurant food!
Piss in the soup, dipped rats in the eggs, hock in the food.
FUCK restaurant food!
Tim,
I think you’ve got a Dr. Seuss story in there somewhere, if we can just punch up the dialogue a bit.
?
.