McDanger

McDonald's is thinking of serving breakfast 24 hours a day.

The CEO of McDonald's recently said that friends of his were clamoring for limitless opportunities to devour the "high-quality product that we deliver at breakfast."

I'm not one to bash McDonald's. I say live and let live, assuming that's possible for anyone who eats fast food regularly. I've always believed that if McDonald's sandwiches were prepared carefully, which they are not, they would taste pretty good. Unfortunately, the majority of the company cooks look like juvenile delinquents given their last chance at gainful employment before being shipped off to penal colonies. Nevertheless, I have eaten McDonald's meals that I've enjoyed, a confession I'm not too proud to make.

I've also eaten breakfast at McDonald's. It's prison food.

Take McDonald's Big Breakfast™. The corporation is so proud of this assemblage that they trademarked it, which means that any schlub who opens a roadside diner and tries to sell something he calls a big breakfast will soon be visited by corporate lawyers demanding that he cease and desist. Yes, the word "big," followed by "breakfast," belongs to McDonald's and McDonald's alone, even though it's as generic a term as I can envision. We all thought big oil interests were running this nation. Now we know the big breakfast interests have political clout, too.

McDonald's Big Breakfast™ consists of scrambled eggs, a biscuit, a sausage patty, and hash browns. Every single item has one dominant characteristic: rubberiness. You could bounce them off the floor. I was tempted to do that, not for testing purposes but out of sheer frustration. That's how bad most of them taste.

I have to confess that I didn't mind the biscuit, but that's because I come from the North and have no idea how a biscuit is supposed to taste. I have heard the word "flakiness" used with biscuits, and this biscuit sure didn't have that. Still, it's better than sliced, packaged white bread, and we Northerners are grateful for any upgrade.

The sausage is bland, sweet, and greasy. The eggs, a deadly dry assemblage midway between an omelet and scrambled eggs, do boast a slight egginess. The potato cake appears to be made from army-issue reconstituted potato flakes, although when I called McDonald's customer service, I was assured that the contents were wonderfully fresh.

Breakfast in America is declining rapidly, even though the rest of our restaurant meals seem to be improving. Little could depress me more than the thought of all Americans sitting around eating Big Breakfasts™ 24 hours a day. Then the nice McDonald's customer satisfaction representative made me feel worse. She asked if I'd tried McDonald's Deluxe Breakfast.

"What's that?" I gasped.

"Hotcakes," she added.

Indeed, it's true. Take the Big Breakfast™, add hotcakes and hotcake syrup, and the Big Breakfast™ is promoted to Deluxe Breakfast status. I rushed out to try McDonald's hotcakes. They are beyond comprehension. Think of the floury taste of pancake batter. Now think of that batter transmuted into solid form. McDonald's pancakes do not taste as though they were cooked.

McDonald's has yet to trademark the name Deluxe Breakfast. I would like to think they were turned down. Perhaps our federal government has finally taken a righteous stand against big corporate interests, even if it's only where breakfasts are concerned.