
The last McDonalds hamburger in Iceland - xvirk
http://bushostelreykjavik.com/last-mcdonalds-in-iceland
======
LukeB_UK
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...](http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-
revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html)

------
jofer
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!

~~~
wodenokoto
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.

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damon_c
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!

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lordnacho
Reminds me of this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Redi](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.

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

~~~
DougN7
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.

~~~
dghughes
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.

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

~~~
PeterWhittaker
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.)

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

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

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icantthinkofone
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.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
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.

~~~
DanBC
> 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.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
A recent article used "Uber" as a verb, and poorly at that, and my comment
upon the linkbaitiness and poor organization of the article got several
downvotes.

It wasn't about Uber directly, to be fair.

And, of course, my comment parent to yours is being downvoted as well.

(Which leads roundly to the question of the purpose of the downvote: To flag?
Perhaps. To disagree? Hmm, perhaps actually writing a contrary or critical
comment is more constructive. Other? Not sure. As I've stated often enough
herein, I never downvote, I don't believe in it, I believe it serves no useful
purpose (flag abuse, end of story), and believe that upvoting the good is
sufficient to bury the bad. But I digress.)

~~~
DanBC
You Uber comment got downvoted because you posted a rant about an article
which you hadn't bothered to read. It was a long tedious post to say "I don't
like it when people use brandnames as verbs" \- a reasonable point but made
unreasonably. (Condescension and patronising tone will attract downvotes)

> (Which leads roundly to the question of the purpose of the downvote:

It's there for whatever purpose the downvoter wants. There are plenty of
people who like you think downvoting is evil and must be avoided at all cost
unless a post really deserves it. Those people will supply corrective upvotes
if they see a post that has been unfairly downvoted. Don't forget that
everyone has upvote privs and not everyone has downvote privs so if your post
gets a downvote it hasn't just had a single person downvoting it, but the rest
of the readership declining to upvote it.

