The last McDonalds hamburger in Iceland

http://bushostelreykjavik.com/last-mcdonalds-in-iceland

by xvirk • 11 years ago

63 37 11 years ago

LukeB_UK• 11 years ago

J. Kenji López-Alt from Serious Eats did some experimentation and found that burgers in general don't really rot: http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-r...

damon_c• 11 years ago

I used to make TV commercials and in 1998 I absconded with the leftover "hero buns" from a Wendy's commercial shoot.

I still have them, in a box, sealed in their original food stylist primped and prepped state. They are in containers with clear tops so I can look at them without poisoning the air. A few of them have decomposed completely into green dust. Others are completely pristine.

Maybe when Wendy's closes their last store in the USA I will donate them to a museum!

superme• 11 years ago

I'm guessing the bun is a closer relative to cake than bread, hence the shelf life.

PeterWhittaker3• 11 years ago

Wow, this got downvoted?

For why?

Perverse pleasure aside, I really do not understand the criteria by which some apply their downvotes.

(Upvoted you in sympathy, don't believe in downvoting, etc.)

icantthinkofone2• 11 years ago

Two questions:

1) Why is this on HN?

2) How in the world did it make it the the #2 spot (at the moment)?

EDIT: Knew I would get downvoted. I now have as little respect for HN as I do for Reddit. You wouldn't believe how little respect I have for Reddit.

noir_lord• 11 years ago

  1) Because someone posted it.
  2) Because enough people up voted it.

krapp5• 11 years ago

In a community based on karma and ranking, your personal predilections have little value, only the consensus determines quality. As such, your complaints about quality also have little value.

Upvote what you want to see more of, downvote what you want to see less of, flag spam and abuse, and if you still don't like what bubbles up on HN, post more of the kind of content you would rather see.

icantthinkofone2• 11 years ago

Nope. My personal 'predilections' have nothing to do with it. I thought HN had a theme other than McDonald's restaurant closings and that would make it off topic. Obiously not and anything goes here without moderation. So I'm done.

jacquesm• 11 years ago

2 submissions in 3 months and you're the one to complain?

Submit what you'd like to see more of, if it gains traction then maybe you won't see what you don't want to see in slot 2. As an aside, you can simply ignore slot #2 and click on 'more' at the bottom and look at the first link on the next page. It's a workaround, but a surprisingly effective one.

DanBC6• 11 years ago

Just out of interest: Why do you think this submission is off-topic? What exactly about it makes it off-topic?

Maybe have another look at the guidelines for submissions.

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

This story is mildly interesting, especially if you look past the "McDonald's never rot" meme and at the "Here's how one hotel advertises itself".

Also remember that HN is much less busy on weekends and so different things bubble up.

But, if you still think it shouldn't be here it's probably best to just flag it.

PeterWhittaker3• 11 years ago

Don't feel bad. I've begun taking a perverse pleasure in learning which of my posts/comments will get downvoted.

(Generally, anything criticizing HN darlings, e.g., Uber, will get downvoted. The echo chamber is strong.)

I suspect you got downvoted because of a petulant realization of the inherent contradiction that many of us realize: This article really does not fit the HN guidelines at all yet we find it so intriguing.

I believe the reasons we find it so intriguing are pretty obvious: We all of us, we hackers, love the exceptional, the one-of-its-kind, the historically significant if sufficiently curious, etc. We hack because the status quo isn't good enough.

Getting that into a guideline is a bit tougher.

I suspect I'll get downvoted because I just labelled the echo chamber as petulant. But that's a comfortable shoe, so so be it.

detaro• 11 years ago

This article really does not fit the HN guidelines at all yet we find it so intriguing.

See the guidelines. Basically, if many find it intriguing it probably is on-topic.

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

DanBC6• 11 years ago

Uber, will get downvoted

Do you have any examples of your posts that you think got downvoted because you criticised Uber?

I've made plenty of posts criticising Uber and got upvoes for most of those posts so I'm interested to see the difference.

mikerichards• 11 years ago

I'll tell you how.

First you got, For many that was symbolic for the way Icelanders shun the capitalistic powers in Iceland following the crisis.

That's red meat for the socialist, statist, anti-americans that infest HN now.

You're right. HN is more of a joke than Reddit is now. The hive mind is hysterical.

lordnacho• 11 years ago

Reminds me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Redi

Basically the theory of spontaneous generation (of maggots) was falsified by this guy, who tried it with open and closed jars.

jofer• 11 years ago

One of the things I found interesting about Iceland is that, at least when I was doing fieldwork there (~12 years ago), beef was outrageously expensive, but lamb and salmon were relatively cheap. We "had" to eat a lot of lamb and salmon to keep costs down.

For that reason, a lot of restaurants with burgers on the menu served ground lamb instead of ground beef. Lambburgers are tasty!

At the time, I worked at a McDonald's back home. I had no intention of eating at one abroad, but I was curious to see what an Icelandic McDonald's would look like. I went to one somewhere in/near Keflavik shortly after we arrived, and while the menu looked more or less the same, a regular cheesburger was the equivalent of ~$10. (Not the meal, or a quarter pounder, just a cheesburger.) At the time, I was completely flabbergasted.

I'd wager a significant portion of the reason that all McDonald's closed in Iceland is simply cost. Beef is more-or-less entirely imported, and is therefore very expensive. Lamb is cheaper and tastier. McDonald's uses all beef (and bad beef, at that), and just can't compete with local short-order restaurants.

Keep in mind that this was in 2002-2003, well before the recent economic troubles in Iceland. It was also the first time I'd ever been outside the US. Everything seemed outrageously expensive to me, partly just because I was living in one of the cheapest cities in the US (my share of the rent was $80/month) and was getting by on ~$300/month.

Also, Iceland has _incredible_ hot dogs, weirdly enough... Natural casing, better meat (lamb, maybe?), and they're nicely seasoned. They're just plain good. We used to cook them in an aluminum foil packet with onions over the fire, and then sear them a touch over the flames after the onions were cooked. I'll never look at hot dogs the same way again!

wodenokoto2• 11 years ago

Some of the food-price stories I've heard from Iceland are crazy.

I had a friend who went to Iceland regularly back in the early 2000's and he once paid 60 usd for a regular pizza.

mattdotc• 11 years ago

The sad part is that even after seeing experiments like this, I still occasionally get cravings to eat a McDonald's cheeseburger.

nitrogen2• 11 years ago

Do you ever eat nuts? They don't rot either.

mwfunk• 11 years ago

Nothing sad about that, they're freaking delicious.

wodenokoto2• 11 years ago

There are lots of reasons not to eat McDonalds. The hamburger not rotting is not one of them.

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-r...

dghughes2• 11 years ago

Fruitcake and even honey will last for decades too people freak out over natural and man made preservatives, Facebook alarmist unscientific crap.

DougN7• 11 years ago

Honey lasts for hundreds, even thousands of years because some enzyme the bees produce. Apparently honey found in Egyptian tombs was found to still be good.

dghughes2• 11 years ago

I wasn't sure so I played it safe with decades, my sporadic rants are not well-researched.

I think there is a famous fruitcake over a hundred years old.

The last McDonalds hamburger in Iceland

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