The Big Mac, it's a pretty awesome sandwich, the concept that is, grilled beef, crisp fresh lettuce, onions, pickles, cheese and special mac sauce, and that middle part of the burger, known to those in the know as the club, all can come together to make a pretty tasty burger, even from the hectic, chaotic, pimple packed production lines of a McDonalds fast food 'kitchen' they taste pretty reasonable, which is why they have lasted so long, and still sell quite well. I've always said, when you crave a Big Mac there can be nothing else, it has to be, or does it? In this day age with everything getting bigger, even our mobile phones, the 'Big' Mac just doesn't quite sound right when you look at it, it's just not big, in fact you could quite easily argue it's rather small.

McDonalds has done little to address this, sure there's the occasional release of the Mega Mac, which has twice the meat or the Angus Mac, and even some McDonalds locations around the globe taking matters into their own hands and releasing a 'Grand Mac', this is rumoured to be made from Quarter Pounder patties, but from the pics I've seen, I doubt it. This is actually something I have often thought about, a Big Mac made with Quarter patties, how good would it be? (rhetorical question), I've had a Mega Mac before and to be honest I wasn't all that impressed, but it was quite some time ago, and is even featured on my fast farces, so perhaps thats why it wasn't that great. Why haven't McDonalds done anything? There's been enough satire of the 'Big Mac', it's very popular sandwich and bigger version would definitely sell, the curiousity was killing me so to settle this once and for all I think you all know what I did. That's right, I ordered a Big Mac with two extra patties and enough other burgers to construct my own Grand Mac.

Here we have them, side by side, the Mega Mac and my very own Grand Mac, I was surprised at how comparable they were in height, and with double meat the Mega Mac also looked reasonably respectable in the width department, even though you can clearly see the Grand Mac looking plump and proud with the patties easily protruding over the bread. Down the middle you can also see the sloppiness of the Mega Mac, with it's four patties just looking limp and boring, compare that to the almost perfect Grand Mac, it's just a superior looking sandwich. But looks is where the superiority ends. The Grand Mac was simply too beefy and too dry, McDonalds beef patties are notoriously dry and the sauce just wasn't enough to alleviate this, it really was chewy, dry, meat hell in the mouth, not really an enjoyable experience to be honest.

The Mega Mac, which is actually a proper McDonalds sandwich was better, it was still dry, but the flavour of a Big Mac was definitely much more prevalent than the Grand Mac. Still though, after a few bites I stopped, and actually 'salvaged' the other half of the Mega Mac and made it a normal Big Mac, I had to see the difference, and it was marked, the Big Mac was by far the best experience of the three variants. It really struck me how crucial the 'flavour' of the McDonalds buns are, if you think about it, when you eat a Big Mac, the dominant flavours for most of the experience are the sauce and that warm toasted ever so slightly sweet bun.

And there we have it, the probable reason why McDonalds has not messed with their original creation, they obviously spend an incredible amount on food research, discovering flavours, seeing what works together and what doesn't and this must be the reason why the Big Mac has not changed since it's invention in 1967, the combination and ratio of ingredients come together to create that good times and great taste that only a Big Mac can deliver. Sure variants will come and go, some might even stay, but none will replace the Big Mac.

Volvodriver Advice - Stick with the Original