NEW YORK, NY — Like so many other people, I like to stop into the local McDonald’s whenever I’m overseas. Say what you want about the quality of the food, but when you’re thousands of miles from home and not the kind of traveler that builds an extensive culinary itinerary, comfort food is a must at some point in the trip. There’s nothing more reassuring and consistent than McDonald’s core menu items.
And let’s not forget about the occasional local menu item, which makes for fine Instagram fodder. For years, I made detours just to gawk for social media content. “Bone-in chicken at a McDonald’s? CrAzyYyyy”
It was not until a trip to Marrakech during the holy month of Ramadan that those visits became more serious. As I browsed the ordering screen, there it was, an item that I never expected to find at a McDonald’s restaurant: “FTOUR MEAL”, a toolkit for breaking the daily fast. It included dates, a honey covered pastry called chebakia, harira soup, and a cup of milk, presented in a box decorated with elaborate Arab artistic motifs.
As I photographed the contents, I began to take notice of the people around me, all of them locals breaking their fast under the glow of the Golden Arches: a group of teens, two kids with their mother, and a middle aged woman dining solo. Here, McDonald’s had broken through to a religious practice meant to signify your closeness with God. What else had I missed over the years, looking at the restaurant with such uncurious eyes?
There was a thread between all of those local menu items, a serious story to be told. I just had to figure out what it was. When I finally posted the ftour meal, I grouped it together with the various items that I had collected from previous trips. I labeled the story highlight “McAtlas”.
Every journalist wants to cover the big story, and in the food world, there is nothing bigger than McDonald’s. It is the largest restaurant chain on the planet, with 40,000+ stores in over 110 countries and territories.
The Golden Arches are the “ultimate icon of Americana,” wrote future New York Times executive editor Bill Keller when he reported on the opening of the first Russian McDonald’s restaurant from Moscow’s Pushkin Square in 1990. But despite being the symbol of cultural imperialism and a harbinger of monoculture, most of the countries that McDonald’s entered forced the chain to change. Globalization is not a one way street.
McAtlas is my attempt to cover this big story, a visual social anthropology of McDonald’s, its impact on various foreign markets, and how localization takes the wheel. This project is ongoing, but has thus far involved field work in over fifty countries across six continents.
This newsletter will offer a behind-the-scenes look inside project. There will be more to share soon. But for now, happy new year, and I thank you for your interest in the McAtlas.