00:00:00
my parents didn't take us to fast food
00:00:02
places when I was little they thought
00:00:04
they were an abomination in any case we
00:00:07
didn't have a McDonald's back then in
00:00:08
our little town so it wasn't like I was
00:00:10
confronted by the fact of french fries
00:00:13
they were some dimly understood concept
00:00:15
something that people out there
00:00:17
somewhere did to a potato that somehow
00:00:19
implicated the French
00:00:21
[Music]
00:00:24
then one day after track practice 13
00:00:27
years old I went to my first McDonald's
00:00:31
have you ever seen a puppy encounter
00:00:33
snow for the first time
00:00:35
he burrows his nose into it with this
00:00:37
look of perplexity and sheer Delight
00:00:39
because he can't understand where this
00:00:41
white thing came from that is both
00:00:42
fluffy and cold
00:00:44
it was like that for me a slice of
00:00:47
potato crispy on the outside yet somehow
00:00:50
pillowy soft on the inside
00:00:52
right then and there I gave my heart to
00:00:55
McDonald's
00:00:57
and then McDonald's broke it
00:01:00
[Applause]
00:01:00
[Music]
00:01:03
is Malcolm Gladwell you're listening to
00:01:05
revisionist history my podcast about
00:01:07
things overlooked and misunderstood
00:01:11
this week I'm on a mission to understand
00:01:13
why McDonald's betrayed me so many years
00:01:17
ago
00:01:18
foreign
00:01:20
[Music]
00:01:24
begins in a non-descript Office Park in
00:01:27
Foster City California just south of San
00:01:30
Francisco a place called Matson maybe
00:01:32
the top food research and development
00:01:34
house in the country the Los Alamos of
00:01:37
Food Science
00:01:38
I came here to walk back the cat as they
00:01:41
say in the intelligence business to
00:01:43
figure out what happened on July 23 1990
00:01:46
the day McDonald's changed the recipe of
00:01:48
their Fries Forever and turned their
00:01:51
backs on everything I once held dear
00:01:55
[Music]
00:02:01
I'll go get another like Seymour and
00:02:03
then I'm just going to take the
00:02:04
temperature down of the Tallow I said to
00:02:06
Matson
00:02:07
make me some fries the old way let's do
00:02:10
a taste test modern fries versus
00:02:13
original McDonald's fries
00:02:15
so we did we ate them sat there in the
00:02:18
Matson conference room in a blissful
00:02:21
food coma teaser I'm going back to the
00:02:23
first one I have to say these are
00:02:25
excellent those are King fries
00:02:28
then we thought let's call in some
00:02:30
people too young to have ever tasted the
00:02:32
old kind just to make sure we weren't
00:02:34
all dreaming that this wasn't some
00:02:36
middle-aged fantasy about how everything
00:02:38
was better in the good old days
00:02:40
do we have a millennial we can grab
00:02:42
right away
00:02:44
maybe Jack quick before the fries get
00:02:47
cold yeah
00:02:50
we had the batches of fries in identical
00:02:52
baskets identified only by number
00:02:55
6 37 128 and 75.
00:03:00
we lined up the Millennials start here
00:03:02
go down the line I want to know which
00:03:05
one you like the best
00:03:07
Millennial french fries yeah this is
00:03:09
french fry eating contest
00:03:13
we have three just for the record we
00:03:14
have three Millennials here that's
00:03:16
correct 23 28 25 years of age the food
00:03:21
scientists of the future
00:03:22
they sample all three options they all
00:03:25
reach the same conclusion I like this
00:03:27
one
00:03:29
you like the first seven yeah yeah okay
00:03:32
who's next I also choose 637
00:03:36
I think I like I'm kind of torn between
00:03:39
128 and 637.
00:03:41
um
00:03:42
but I think I like uh maybe 637 slightly
00:03:45
better
00:03:46
6 37 6 37.
00:03:50
[Music]
00:03:55
I've had the great opportunity to make a
00:03:59
lot of money and do something with it to
00:04:02
help people
00:04:04
there was a Time in America a generation
00:04:06
ago when a man called Phil sokoloff was
00:04:09
a household name
00:04:11
dad was just very intense and he was a
00:04:15
lovely person but very intense that's
00:04:18
Karen javich Phil sokoloff's daughter
00:04:20
it's hard to explain it you have to
00:04:22
experience it I mean the man that bought
00:04:25
his business from him okay my dad would
00:04:28
talk a lot he this guy would sit with my
00:04:31
dad for hours and this was an accountant
00:04:34
he knew so many people around Oman he
00:04:36
came to me he said your father is the
00:04:40
most intense person I have ever met
00:04:43
started a business making corner bead
00:04:46
which is the metal bracing that you use
00:04:48
when you install drywall he noticed that
00:04:50
it was really expensive
00:04:52
decided he could make it cheaper and he
00:04:54
just found this niche that you know just
00:04:58
happened to make a lot of money and he
00:05:00
was very driven and he knew he'd make a
00:05:01
lot of money but once he made his money
00:05:03
and then he sort of got tired of the
00:05:06
business and he knew he wanted to try
00:05:07
and do something to help people
00:05:09
then sokolov had a heart attack he was
00:05:12
43 years old and he was in good shape
00:05:15
the only thing he did wrong was he
00:05:18
didn't eat right and he had a high
00:05:20
cholesterol when you say he didn't eat
00:05:22
well
00:05:23
What were what was he like before the
00:05:25
yeah he's he was thin he always said he
00:05:29
ate too much chili he ate too much meat
00:05:32
too many fats and the high cholesterol
00:05:35
though also is genetic he had heart
00:05:37
problems in his family he was really
00:05:39
shaken by this
00:05:41
by this heart attack yeah oh this
00:05:43
totally devastated him never ever
00:05:46
expected this to happen and when you're
00:05:48
43 you know you think you're going to
00:05:49
live forever and this really changed his
00:05:53
life totally
00:05:55
sokolov's doctors tell him his diet and
00:05:57
his high cholesterol levels put him at
00:05:58
risk for more heart attacks so he
00:06:01
decides to do something about it not
00:06:03
just for himself but for everyone he
00:06:06
starts a crusade he wants to save
00:06:08
America from saturated fat the alleged
00:06:10
culprit in high cholesterol
00:06:13
sokoloff pays to have cholesterol tests
00:06:15
for thousands of Nebraskans
00:06:17
he goes to Capitol Hill and does the
00:06:19
same thing for ten thousand people who
00:06:21
work there including 70 Senators he
00:06:24
starts campaigns to get low-fat milk and
00:06:26
school lunches he buys full page ads in
00:06:28
the Wall Street Journal in the New York
00:06:30
Times And The Washington Post with huge
00:06:32
scary headlines
00:06:34
one year he buys a 2.5 million dollar ad
00:06:37
during the Super Bowl he takes over a
00:06:39
billboard in Times Square to say cut fat
00:06:42
intake and live longer
00:06:44
[Music]
00:06:46
this campaign that he was involved in he
00:06:49
spent on an enormous amount of his own
00:06:51
money on this yeah he really did I'm not
00:06:54
sure how much whether it was 14 15
00:06:57
million I can't remember wow yeah which
00:07:00
30 years ago is a lot of money a lot of
00:07:02
money it still is I remember my aunt
00:07:04
telling me he's spending all of your
00:07:06
inheritance
00:07:10
[Music]
00:07:13
sokoloff was on Phil Donahue the Nightly
00:07:16
News
00:07:17
for most of us cholesterol is a private
00:07:19
Affair but an Omaha man has made it a
00:07:21
public Crusade and he is spending a
00:07:23
personal Fortune going after what he
00:07:26
thinks are The Fountains of fat in
00:07:28
America
00:07:29
The Fountains of fat
00:07:31
sokolov goes to the source he finds a
00:07:34
way to personally Lobby the CEOs of big
00:07:36
food companies Kellogg Ralston Purina
00:07:39
Pillsbury
00:07:41
how on Earth he got through no one seems
00:07:43
to know
00:07:44
when he called up some of these
00:07:46
Executives at big food companies what
00:07:49
was he saying to them I mean was he
00:07:51
Charming them was he brow beating them
00:07:53
was he I'm just curious about what kind
00:07:55
of conversations were going on yeah I
00:07:57
think it was that he was eventually brow
00:08:01
beating them
00:08:03
I hate to say that I mean I think he was
00:08:06
Charming at first but then he got down
00:08:08
to business like you know you need to
00:08:09
take this product out of your cereal or
00:08:13
I'm gonna you know come forth with the
00:08:15
with the big ad you know and he did it
00:08:18
and he got them to take the product out
00:08:20
they were I'm sure very surprised they
00:08:22
called him you know David and Goliath
00:08:24
he's he's a little David taking on these
00:08:26
big food companies he loved that that
00:08:29
they said that about him
00:08:31
then it happens and maybe it was
00:08:34
inevitable
00:08:35
Phil sokolov goes after McDonald's the
00:08:38
biggest prize of them all a full-page
00:08:41
newspaper ad that Iran in many parts of
00:08:43
the country yesterday is giving new
00:08:44
meaning to the term Big Mac attack
00:08:46
they've been cooking their fries in beef
00:08:48
Tallow animal fat sokolov decides they
00:08:52
have to stop the ad is headlined the
00:08:54
poisoning of America and it accuses
00:08:56
McDonald's of selling burgers and fries
00:08:58
that are loaded with fat McDonald's
00:09:00
denies the charges in the ad which it
00:09:02
calls Reckless misleading and intended
00:09:04
to scare rather than inform sokolov is
00:09:07
all over the media the lone guy from
00:09:09
Omaha up against the mightiest fast food
00:09:11
company in history it's riveting live TV
00:09:15
Phil sokoloff is the man who placed the
00:09:17
ad he's a Nebraska businessman and the
00:09:18
president of his group which he calls
00:09:20
the national heart Savers Association
00:09:21
here he is on Good Morning America also
00:09:24
with us is Dick Starman his senior vice
00:09:26
president of McDonald's gentlemen good
00:09:27
morning to both of you good morning and
00:09:29
we're really on the same site we just go
00:09:31
about it there we're on the same site
00:09:32
and exactly I don't want people to eat
00:09:34
your hamburgers they're too fat but we
00:09:36
want people to eat lean broken concerned
00:09:38
about dieting good healthy foods America
00:09:40
is watching and mighty McDonald's and
00:09:43
the Giant Killer from Omaha are going at
00:09:45
it tooth in male sokolov shouts that's
00:09:49
not true your fries are cooked in animal
00:09:51
fat the McDonald's guy gets flustered
00:09:53
tries to say something sokolov doesn't
00:09:55
let him finish
00:09:57
vegetable and they are 90 to 95 beef
00:10:00
towels
00:10:02
we do have it now yes you're feeding the
00:10:05
people it's in all of our recipes they
00:10:06
just took out chicken skin out of their
00:10:08
Chicken McNugget three weeks ago tell
00:10:10
them about Egg McMuffins tell them about
00:10:12
your beef Tello and your French fries
00:10:14
tell them about yourself and on it goes
00:10:17
McDonald's calls in lawyers they send
00:10:20
threatening letters to newspapers
00:10:21
warning them not to run any more of
00:10:23
sokoloff's ads but that just winds up
00:10:26
suckle off even more he loves a good
00:10:28
fight so he runs another round of ads
00:10:30
and finally McDonald's surrenders July
00:10:33
23 1990. they quietly announce no more
00:10:37
beef tala
00:10:39
just recently I got in contact with dick
00:10:42
Starman the McDonald's executive who
00:10:44
went toe-to-toe with Bill sokoloff on
00:10:45
network TV I wanted to know what
00:10:48
happened inside McDonald's headquarters
00:10:50
after sokolov came at them did they have
00:10:53
a picture of him with a bullseye on it
00:10:54
how was it that a company making
00:10:56
mass-produced milkshakes hamburgers and
00:10:59
deep fried potatoes was somehow
00:11:01
sensitive to the charge that they were
00:11:03
making unhealthy food that kind of thing
00:11:06
he didn't want to talk maybe it's still
00:11:08
a sore point after all these years
00:11:11
all we know is McDonald's gave in they
00:11:14
folded and once they folded everyone
00:11:17
else did too
00:11:18
Wendy's announced they were going with
00:11:20
100 corn oil
00:11:21
Burger King said they would switch to
00:11:23
cottonseed and soybean I look at my dad
00:11:26
as being a powerful man and it was like
00:11:30
whenever I was with him was like I knew
00:11:32
nothing bad would happen to me he was
00:11:34
just like kept me safe you know I think
00:11:37
girls tend to think that about their
00:11:39
dads anyway
00:11:40
but he was he was powerful
00:11:46
because this has consequences for all of
00:11:49
us I feel I have to go back to the
00:11:52
beginning
00:11:55
it all starts with a man named Ray Kroc
00:11:57
he made his living selling the five
00:12:00
spindle multi-mixer milkshake machine
00:12:02
out of Chicago
00:12:03
and in 1954 he began hearing about a
00:12:07
hamburger stand in San Bernardino
00:12:09
California
00:12:09
this particular restaurant he was told
00:12:12
had no fewer than eight of his machines
00:12:14
in operation meaning that it could make
00:12:17
40 milkshakes simultaneously
00:12:19
he couldn't believe that
00:12:21
he flew from Chicago to Los Angeles and
00:12:24
drove to San Bernardino 60 miles away
00:12:26
and sat in his car and just watched one
00:12:29
happy customer after another drive up
00:12:32
he goes up to a blonde and a yellow
00:12:34
convertible and says how often do you
00:12:36
come here and she says anytime I'm in
00:12:39
the neighborhood
00:12:40
he realizes people are addicted
00:12:43
the next morning he goes back and sits
00:12:45
inside the kitchen watching every move
00:12:48
everyone there makes the griddle man the
00:12:50
food preparer everything done with
00:12:52
military precision and suddenly he has
00:12:55
this vision of restaurants just like
00:12:57
this all around the world
00:13:01
so he asks the two brothers who own the
00:13:03
place if he could buy their franchise
00:13:05
rights they said yes their names of
00:13:08
course dick and Mac McDonald
00:13:12
now why is Ray Kroc so smitten with
00:13:14
McDonald's not because of the burger the
00:13:17
burger is fine but it's not any
00:13:19
different from Burgers anywhere else
00:13:21
it's because of the fries raycroc can't
00:13:24
believe how good they are golden brown
00:13:26
crispy on the outside light and fluffy
00:13:29
on the inside
00:13:31
let me quote to you from Croc's
00:13:33
autobiography The crucial Passage
00:13:36
to most people a French-fried potato is
00:13:39
a pretty uninspiring object it's fodder
00:13:42
something to kill time chewing between
00:13:44
bites of hamburger and swallows of
00:13:46
milkshake that's your ordinary french
00:13:49
fry
00:13:50
the McDonald's french fry was in an
00:13:52
entirely different League they lavished
00:13:55
attention on it I didn't know it then
00:13:57
but one day I would too the French fry
00:14:00
would become almost sacrosanct to me its
00:14:03
preparation a ritual to be followed
00:14:06
religiously
00:14:08
the McDonald's Brothers used top quality
00:14:11
eight ounce Idaho russets peeled soaked
00:14:14
in cold water then deep fried in
00:14:16
something Croc would come to call
00:14:17
Formula 47 which was a special beef
00:14:20
Tallow mix
00:14:24
Formula 47 was what's called A Hard fat
00:14:27
butter is a hard fat lard which is pork
00:14:30
fat is a hard fat
00:14:32
s are saturated fats from time
00:14:36
immemorial practically every culture in
00:14:38
the world has used hard fats for baking
00:14:40
and cooking for good reason heart fats
00:14:43
are stable they don't undergo strange
00:14:45
chemical changes when they're heated and
00:14:48
they're thick and creamy not oily and
00:14:50
fluid which makes a big difference
00:14:52
[Music]
00:14:53
you put butter on a slice of bread it
00:14:55
stays nice and thick on the surface you
00:14:58
put vegetable oil on bread and the next
00:15:00
thing you know your nice firm slices
00:15:02
turn to mush
00:15:04
when Nabisco took saturated fat out of
00:15:07
the creamy middle of the Oreo cookie the
00:15:09
r d was like the Apollo space program
00:15:12
the greatest Minds in food engineering
00:15:14
had to sit down and try and figure out
00:15:16
how to keep the white part from turning
00:15:18
into a slippery oily mess
00:15:21
when Ray Kroc said that the French fry
00:15:24
was sacrosanct to him what he meant was
00:15:26
that every element of its preparation
00:15:28
was chosen for a reason
00:15:31
chosen because it made for the optimal
00:15:33
french fry experience
00:15:35
[Music]
00:15:39
Croc has a line in his autobiography
00:15:41
where he talks about how the McDonald's
00:15:42
Brothers taught him never to cook french
00:15:44
fries in fat that had been previously
00:15:46
used to cook anything else like fried
00:15:48
chicken
00:15:49
any restaurant will deny it he writes
00:15:52
but almost all of them do it The Croc he
00:15:55
listened and right from the beginning he
00:15:57
put his foot down there would be no
00:15:59
cross-contamination of the McDonald's
00:16:00
cooking oil that's someone who truly
00:16:03
cares about French fries that's the
00:16:05
Legacy he created under the golden
00:16:07
arches
00:16:09
and then all of a sudden this random guy
00:16:12
from Omaha puts a gun to McDonald's head
00:16:14
and says change or else
00:16:18
[Music]
00:16:20
challenge was to find a way to replace a
00:16:23
hard fat with a liquid fat
00:16:25
and liquid fats are less than ideal in a
00:16:28
deep fryer that's problem number one the
00:16:31
first replacement oil McDonald's
00:16:32
experiments with is a cottonseed and
00:16:35
corn oil blend
00:16:36
but that turns out to be really high in
00:16:38
something called trans fat and it's not
00:16:40
long before everyone realizes that trans
00:16:42
fats are way way way worse for you than
00:16:45
animal fats
00:16:47
not even close
00:16:48
so in 2002 McDonald's changes the oils
00:16:51
again cutting the trans fat in half
00:16:54
six years later they have to switch yet
00:16:56
again this time to get rid of all the
00:16:58
trans fat
00:17:00
then there's a problem that vegetable
00:17:02
oils aren't nearly as stable as hard
00:17:04
fats
00:17:05
all kinds of nasty things happen when
00:17:07
you heat them up the deep fryer suddenly
00:17:09
becomes a kind of witch's cauldron
00:17:11
spewing dangerous elements there's a big
00:17:14
cloud of electrons there and it can
00:17:16
react with the oxygen that might be
00:17:18
present in the oil or above the surface
00:17:21
Gerald McNeil he's Global vice president
00:17:23
for fats oil and nutrition for Lotus
00:17:26
Kirkland a big multinational
00:17:28
it's part of big cooking oil and I will
00:17:31
start degrading the oil very rapidly and
00:17:34
and certainly the breakdown products
00:17:36
have a lot of aldehydes as a byproduct
00:17:39
and aldehydes they attack the proteins
00:17:44
and DNA you know in our bodies
00:17:47
you don't really want to know what the
00:17:49
current thinking is on aldehydes trust
00:17:51
me
00:17:52
but in case you do it's a l d e h y d e
00:17:57
s
00:17:58
Google that and the word scary
00:18:02
so while the big companies that are
00:18:05
touting
00:18:06
polyunsaturated oils and saying they're
00:18:08
healthy well as soon as you put them in
00:18:11
a fryer it's the last thing you want to
00:18:12
eat
00:18:14
crazy stories went around the industry
00:18:16
as the fast food chains struggle to
00:18:18
figure out how to make these vegetable
00:18:19
oil mixes work turns out that after a
00:18:22
lot of frying a kind of paint would form
00:18:24
in the fryer and what happens is it
00:18:27
breaks down in the fryer
00:18:28
and then you know fumes come out and it
00:18:31
goes all around the restaurant let's say
00:18:33
in McDonald's
00:18:34
and the surface of the furniture is
00:18:37
sticky because the stuff that they call
00:18:39
a Mist you know comes out because of
00:18:41
breakdown products the Mist gets on
00:18:43
everything including the uniforms of the
00:18:45
fry station workers which creates a
00:18:48
nightmare when the overalls have to be
00:18:49
laundered and when they they went into
00:18:52
the truck you know to go off to be
00:18:54
cleaned sometimes just by piling the
00:18:57
coats on top of each other
00:18:59
those coats would spontaneously combust
00:19:03
and go on fire
00:19:04
because the breakdown products from the
00:19:06
oil
00:19:07
were highly flammable
00:19:09
they would spontaneously combust
00:19:14
the point is that this is not some
00:19:17
trivial matter it's not if you order a
00:19:20
fried egg in a restaurant you don't
00:19:22
stipulate the medium in which you would
00:19:24
like the egg to be cooked it doesn't
00:19:26
matter that much a fried egg is a fried
00:19:28
egg
00:19:29
think for a moment about what a french
00:19:31
fry is
00:19:32
you start with a potato and a potato is
00:19:35
basically starch and water maybe eighty
00:19:37
percent water you plunge the potato into
00:19:40
a vat of cooking oil and the Heat of the
00:19:42
oil turns the water inside the potato
00:19:44
into steam
00:19:46
that steam is the key to the fry first
00:19:49
it makes the hard starch of the potato
00:19:51
swell and soften which is why the
00:19:54
interior of a fry is so fluffy and Light
00:19:57
at the same time the steam rising from
00:20:00
inside the fry keeps the cooking oil on
00:20:02
the surface of the fry instead of
00:20:04
seeping into the middle
00:20:06
that's why a fry is brown and crisp on
00:20:08
the outside
00:20:11
with rosin once wrote a great book
00:20:13
called The Primal cheeseburger where she
00:20:15
calls the French fry the quote near
00:20:18
perfect enactment of the enriching of a
00:20:20
starch food with oil or fat and she's
00:20:23
absolutely right
00:20:24
you can add fat to potatoes without deep
00:20:27
frying that's called mashed potatoes but
00:20:30
at the end of the day mashed potatoes
00:20:32
are just mush they don't have that
00:20:35
crucial contrast between the Fluffy and
00:20:37
the crispy
00:20:38
the point is that the oil in which you
00:20:40
deep fry the French fry is not
00:20:42
incidental to the creation of the French
00:20:44
fry a french fry is by definition a
00:20:48
potato derivative in which the water has
00:20:51
been replaced with fat
00:20:53
the fat is as much a constituent of the
00:20:55
French fry as the potato
00:20:57
so when you change the oil in a french
00:20:59
fry from hard to liquid fat from
00:21:02
saturated to unsaturated you change the
00:21:06
French fry
00:21:07
in 1990 McDonald's started serving us a
00:21:11
different product
00:21:15
that's why I had to go to the food
00:21:17
scientists at Matson
00:21:19
so we're here in
00:21:26
here and fry some french fries and so we
00:21:28
have a standard when you walk into
00:21:30
Matson you think you're at an accounting
00:21:32
firm
00:21:33
there's a lot of beige Carpeting and a
00:21:35
big Bland conference room then you go
00:21:37
down the corridor and you see lots of
00:21:39
people in white coats you turn a corner
00:21:42
and start to smell all kinds of strange
00:21:44
things all of a sudden you're in a big
00:21:46
kitchen with lots of little beakers and
00:21:48
weapons great appliances
00:21:50
on the day I was there they were testing
00:21:52
some plant-based milk prototypes they
00:21:55
had them all out on the counter in
00:21:57
little cups I got to sample them there
00:21:59
was one in particular with a nut flavor
00:22:01
that was kind of fantastic
00:22:04
and then beef Tallow Matson agreed to
00:22:07
Stage a taste test for me they would get
00:22:09
a batch of frozen fries from the same
00:22:11
suppliers that the fast food chains use
00:22:13
and they would cook them in vegetable
00:22:15
oil just how they cooked them in a
00:22:17
McDonald's
00:22:18
they would also do a pre-1990 french fry
00:22:21
cooked in something as close as they
00:22:23
confined to formula 47. so I would get a
00:22:26
chance to compare the Contemporary
00:22:28
french fry with something no McDonald's
00:22:30
customer has tasted in a generation
00:22:33
so we have a standard Food Service to
00:22:37
Bay fryer do you know what temperature
00:22:40
we're frying at by the way
00:22:42
360 350. and what we've done in advance
00:22:46
of you coming here is we filled the bins
00:22:48
with oil or Tallow that's Barb Stuckey
00:22:53
co-president of Matson I met her years
00:22:55
ago when Matson was running a contest to
00:22:57
create the world's healthiest cookie
00:23:00
short blonde hair high energy if she
00:23:03
were a basketball player they would say
00:23:05
she's got a motor where did you get your
00:23:07
your towel
00:23:09
and how did you choose your talent
00:23:11
very good question we're going to taste
00:23:13
some because we chose it because of the
00:23:16
flavor
00:23:17
we wanted to kind of go back in time
00:23:19
with you so we tried to find Nutella
00:23:22
that we thought had the beefiest flavor
00:23:25
which would be probably the closest
00:23:27
thing to what McDonald's started with so
00:23:30
um I sent Paulo to the local Mexican
00:23:31
market right up the street and we found
00:23:35
a Tallow there that has a really nice
00:23:37
rich beefy flavor Paolo is Palo Beltran
00:23:40
who's going to be one of our fry chefs
00:23:42
along with another Matson specialist
00:23:44
Kathy Westfall
00:23:46
the fourth person in the room is Justin
00:23:49
shimek who runs the company along with
00:23:51
Stucky we've gone old school with our
00:23:53
Channel very old school exactly the plan
00:23:56
is to use pre-frozen russet Burbank
00:23:58
potatoes they're a little lower in water
00:24:00
content than other Potato varieties 77
00:24:03
to 80 water which is a defense against
00:24:05
sogginess
00:24:07
three batches one batch fried twice in
00:24:10
vegetable oils just like the fries you
00:24:12
get in McDonald's today the second batch
00:24:14
a mix fried once in vegetable oil then a
00:24:17
second time in beef tallow and the third
00:24:20
batch old school fried both times in
00:24:23
beef Tallow the fries I tasted at 13.
00:24:26
the ones that blew my mind the first fry
00:24:28
was three minutes the first fire was
00:24:30
three minutes yeah
00:24:35
it's hard to describe what the maths
00:24:37
nights are like in one sense they're
00:24:39
Foodies although that word suggests a
00:24:42
kind of sybaritic slightly decadent
00:24:43
approach to food smacking their lips and
00:24:46
tucking into something fantastic and
00:24:48
telling you about that time they had
00:24:49
barbecue in Kazakhstan that was out of
00:24:51
this world
00:24:52
that's not how the Matt's Knights talk
00:24:54
about food they're dispassionate
00:24:56
objective oddly specific
00:24:59
when Stucky Schmick and I were treated
00:25:01
back to the conference room to wait for
00:25:03
the French fry samples to be cooked
00:25:04
Stuckey started talking about a
00:25:06
restaurant she'd just eaten at so I had
00:25:09
a tomato soup last night that had
00:25:10
Rosemary in it and the Rosemary was so
00:25:13
high
00:25:14
it tasted like a Christmas tree
00:25:18
soup
00:25:21
I couldn't eat it and all I could think
00:25:24
was if we were in the lab at the bench
00:25:27
top
00:25:28
all of my colleagues would have caught
00:25:30
this that the Rosemary is too high wait
00:25:33
did you were you who you who are you
00:25:35
having dinner with your friends yeah did
00:25:38
any of them have the tomato soup yes
00:25:40
I don't think so the Rosemary was so
00:25:44
high that it tasted like a Christmas
00:25:46
tree like a Christmas tree that's so
00:25:48
great
00:25:50
we weren't sitting for more than a few
00:25:51
minutes when the door to the conference
00:25:53
room opened all right wow look at this
00:25:56
here we are
00:25:57
this is Major excitement
00:26:01
the Matson chefs had the batches in
00:26:03
identical metal mesh baskets each was
00:26:06
identified only by number 75 128 637 the
00:26:11
taste test was blinded we had no idea
00:26:14
which fry was which okay all right I'm
00:26:17
gonna start with so 6 37. oh
00:26:23
as a sensory professional we're not
00:26:25
supposed to
00:26:27
give anything away or say anything I
00:26:29
have a hard time doing this
00:26:32
that's him I'm sorry that's amazing
00:26:34
professional
00:26:40
how is that not great
00:26:43
the baskets of fries were on the
00:26:45
conference table in front of me everyone
00:26:47
else had gathered around these were
00:26:49
people who make and consume some of the
00:26:51
world's most exotic prepared foods for a
00:26:54
living you'd think they would be jaded
00:26:56
but they weren't they were on it and me
00:26:59
my head was spinning I was in heaven it
00:27:02
was all I could do to keep the rigorous
00:27:03
objectivity necessary for a valid blind
00:27:06
taste test what are you tasting with the
00:27:09
first one 637
00:27:13
texture on 637 is shatteringly crisp
00:27:17
amazing
00:27:19
perfect French fry texture it's loud
00:27:21
yeah chew it as crunchy crisp but there
00:27:25
is no hole in the middle and it's it's
00:27:28
nice and fluffy in the middle they're
00:27:30
like perfect French fries
00:27:33
and they have a lot of flavor
00:27:36
all right 75 how do you feel it's 75
00:27:38
number two nobody was interested in 75.
00:27:41
they were oily not crispy almost sodden
00:27:44
Bland
00:27:46
just
00:27:47
meth
00:27:52
next one
00:27:55
the surface is really porous there's
00:27:58
a lot of oil squirts out when you bite
00:28:00
into it
00:28:01
three batches of fries prepared
00:28:03
according to the same exacting
00:28:05
specifications but two were entirely
00:28:08
forgotten
00:28:09
and we didn't have to be told what kind
00:28:11
they were
00:28:12
they were what the fast food world has
00:28:14
been passing off as a french fry for the
00:28:16
past quarter century
00:28:17
but the third batch 637
00:28:21
to die for that was the old school fry
00:28:24
the kind of french fry that doesn't
00:28:26
exist anymore
00:28:28
we have a big win for Tallow that's what
00:28:30
we're saying
00:28:31
there's so much going on here also look
00:28:34
at the color difference yeah those look
00:28:36
like fries
00:28:38
my heart is
00:28:40
Philip sadness again to think about how
00:28:42
many how many millions and millions and
00:28:45
millions of people around the world have
00:28:47
never tasted that
00:28:52
thank you that's when we brought in the
00:28:55
Millennials as a second opinion but also
00:28:58
as an act of Mercy because they had no
00:29:01
idea that this is what a french fry
00:29:03
could be like and it seemed unbearably
00:29:05
cruel to deny them that privilege when a
00:29:08
mound of 637 was just sitting there on
00:29:10
the table
00:29:11
can we agree that those are the best
00:29:13
fries we tasted all afternoon yeah it
00:29:15
would be great yeah I'm gonna have more
00:29:17
[Music]
00:29:22
hate Phil sokoloff
00:29:24
I've thought a lot about this in the
00:29:26
intervening years and I've come to
00:29:28
realize that I don't hate him for
00:29:30
killing formula 47. he could have bought
00:29:33
a yacht and a big house in a gated
00:29:34
community in Florida and play golf
00:29:37
and you know how I feel about golf
00:29:39
instead
00:29:41
he took on McDonald's in an attempt to
00:29:44
make the world a healthier better place
00:29:46
my hat is off to him
00:29:49
it's really McDonald's that I blame
00:29:52
they were custodians of a french fry
00:29:55
Legacy the fry was sacrosanct their own
00:29:58
founder said so and what did they do
00:30:01
they rolled over
00:30:03
sold out their own Heritage as if how a
00:30:05
french fry tastes was suddenly a
00:30:08
secondary consideration that's crazy
00:30:11
the only reason there was an argument
00:30:13
about fries in the first place is that
00:30:15
millions of people thought they were
00:30:16
delicious so what do we do we made them
00:30:19
not delicious
00:30:20
wait a minute I'm not done it's worse
00:30:23
than that the original fries were sold
00:30:25
in just one size 2.4 ounces you don't
00:30:29
need any more fries than that but
00:30:31
nowadays what's the large serving of
00:30:33
fries at McDonald's
00:30:34
5.9 ounces more than twice as big as it
00:30:38
used to be
00:30:39
so we've gone from the McDonald's
00:30:40
Brothers original product which gave us
00:30:43
a modest amount of something Sublime to
00:30:46
a large amount of something that tastes
00:30:48
like cardboard I remember going to
00:30:50
McDonald's and having some french fries
00:30:53
and going oh these don't taste as good
00:30:55
because my dad had them changed the way
00:30:58
they were made but uh I think that's
00:31:01
absolutely incredible that he did that
00:31:03
you know he was really he was made to do
00:31:06
something huge and you know he did he
00:31:09
was amazing yeah yeah
00:31:12
what did he say we use you said that he
00:31:16
you know he got McDonald's to change the
00:31:17
way they made fries and the fries didn't
00:31:19
taste as good what did he say when you
00:31:21
said that to him did you ever say that
00:31:22
to him yeah he just laughed he agreed
00:31:27
he laughed I mean he did have a good
00:31:28
sense
00:31:30
[Music]
00:31:33
I'm not surprised Phil sokoloff wasn't
00:31:36
interested in the sensual aspects of the
00:31:38
French fry of course not
00:31:40
he was a zealot a man shaken by his
00:31:43
brush with death he nibbled on
00:31:45
vegetables and maybe an occasional
00:31:47
turkey sandwich he saw his job as
00:31:49
getting all of us to think about the
00:31:51
nutritional consequences of what we put
00:31:53
in our mouths
00:31:54
and for that I think we are in his debt
00:31:58
but McDonald's should have stood up and
00:32:00
pointed out what is lost when we Define
00:32:02
food so narrowly
00:32:04
the world's oblique place when there's
00:32:06
no room for pleasure
00:32:08
you know what one of the mats and
00:32:10
Millennials said after she had tasted a
00:32:13
Tallow fry for the first time
00:32:15
thank you
00:32:17
thank you for the delicious fries
00:32:20
foreign
00:32:24
[Music]
00:32:28
[Laughter]
00:32:31
[Applause]
00:32:31
[Music]
00:32:38
Jacob Smith with Camille Baptista
00:32:41
Stephanie Daniel and siomara Martinez
00:32:43
white our editor is Julia Barton flan
00:32:47
Williams is our engineer original music
00:32:49
by Luis Guerra special thanks to Andrew
00:32:52
Stelzer who came with me to Matson and
00:32:55
as always to Andy Bowers and Jacob
00:32:57
Weisberg at panoply
00:32:59
I'm Malcolm Gladwell
00:33:03
while I still have you I want to remind
00:33:05
you that revisionist history has a
00:33:07
website where we provide links to books
00:33:09
and articles and videos or relevance to
00:33:11
the episodes please check it out at
00:33:13
revisionist history.com
00:33:15
for this episode though I want to give a
00:33:18
special shout out to two people whose
00:33:19
work helped me a lot
00:33:21
one is Gary taubs who has been writing
00:33:23
really provocatively about what we eat
00:33:26
and what it does to us for a very long
00:33:27
time
00:33:28
his most recent book which I loved is
00:33:31
the case against sugar
00:33:33
the other is Nina Thai Schultz whose
00:33:35
fantastic book The Big Fat Surprise why
00:33:37
butter meat and cheese belong in a
00:33:39
healthy diet was of enormous help to me
00:33:42
in researching this episode thank you
00:33:44
Nina thank you Gary and to all those of
00:33:47
you listening I recommend those two
00:33:49
authors to you wholeheartedly
