Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/26/a-quest-for-the-original-mcdonalds-french-fry-recipe.html
…
5 Likes
The problem with this original recipe is that it calls for Crisco. Crisco is no longer what it was in the past. The same drive that changed the McDonald’s french fry recipe also changed the recipe for Crisco. Crisco has been completely changed from it origins as hydrogenated cottonseed oil and is now soybean oil, fully hydrogenated palm oil, and partially hydrogenated palm and soybean oils. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco
12 Likes
I learned from this story that Julia Child had a high horse about “nutritionists” as though it was so terrible that people wanted fast food to be a little less super-bad-for-you. That’s a weird hill to die on.
13 Likes
I worked at McDonalds in the early 80’s, before the change over. I can assure you, the fries were no better then than they are now. But I also am not a huge fan of fries.
11 Likes
But the post says the original recipe used beef tallow, not any sort of vegetable oil. Which is it, I wonder.
6 Likes
The recipe in the linked article says 6 cups Crisco 1/4 cup beef tallow.
7 Likes
Thanks. I do wonder how much difference different vegetable oil mixes make relative to the difference made by a lack of beefy goodness. But I don’t have the lab/kitchen to do all the tests, 
5 Likes
So wait, are you telling me that McDonalds fries were not always this sad, soggy mess?
6 Likes
Years and years ago, I was told that the secret to the “old school” McD french fries was putting the uncooked fries in a bath of sugar water. That was supposed to give them a crispy outside when cooked. OT: The worst fries I ever had were from Dairy Queen. Talk about limp and tasteless, unless you like the taste of old cooking oil and salt.
5 Likes
This is indeed one of the secrets (see TFA) and I bet it’s still undertaken today. The beef tallow thing is also legit though.
I seem to recall a considerable controversy in, IDK, the late 90s or early 2000s – post-tallow but pre-modern McDonald’s fries – when it came out that the updated recipe was not, in fact, vegetarian. To make up for the loss of the tallow flavor (according to my imperfect and possibly apocryphal recollection), McDonald’s added beef flavor extractives to the oil, meaning that the fries still weren’t vegetarian despite retiring tallow as an ingredient. Now the beef flavor has been replaced by various autolyzed plant proteins, which keep it vegetarian and give it some umami meaty characteristics but which don’t quite hit the mark.
12 Likes
I’ve never understood this sentiment. Granted, I don’t remember the last time I ate McDonald’s, but what I do remember is that the fries were the worst I’d ever had, hot or not. I actually think I bought some at a interstate rest stop years ago just to make sure I wasn’t mis-remembering (or someone else did and I had some). Nope, just terrible.
It must be that they’re so thin cut they’re kind of crispy for a second, but that just means they’re far greasier than they should be. Blecch.
3 Likes
I remember them before big cholesterol scare, they were much better.
5 Likes
there is a quest to improve the longevity of fries out of the cooker qualities:
4 Likes
My first real teen job was at McDonald’s.
1976 - McDonald’s fries came frozen to the restaurant. During training we saw a film that showed the fries being sprayed, going through a machine (the par-cooking), and being “flash-frozen”. The fry oil was a combination of beef tallow and hydrogenated vegetable oil, according to the labels.
The secret of keeping them crisp and not oily was the immediate salting and tossing. There was a specific way to toss the fries, and unless you could do it right, you didn’t get assigned to the fry station.
17 Likes
What’s the point of securing nutrition from fast food. It’s garbage, so, for the people that eat it, it should be, at the least, tasty garbage.
People who aren’t’ going to eat this shite, aren’t going to eat this shite, even if it has 10% less trans-fat, People who are going to eat this shite (obviously you know I’m not going to) will eat it even if it’s got a death warning on it.
Wrong hill to die on.
3 Likes
Its always strange finding an article posted hours after I found and read it somewhere else.
Best fries I’ve ever had were 5 Guys- burned extra extra crispy.
Their normal Cajun fries are good, but their extra burned fries (once, by accident) were absolutely amazing, so much so that I still can’t understand why it’s not how they normally make them.
McDonald’s has the worst fries of all. Tasteless mush.
6 Likes
What ever happened to “Freedom Fries”? They were the best fries. They tasted of freedom. #makefriesfreeagain
12 Likes
TFA says they currently add whey protein as part of recreating the meaty taste, so they’re still not vegan.
5 Likes
some folks say potatoes fried in duck fat are simply faboo. is it true that it is a Canadian thing, @RickMycroft ?
11 Likes
My kid and I used to laugh about how only McDs could possibly take a potato and make it non vegetarian.
10 Likes
