This is a completely non horse-related, but equally as important, Olympic-related post.
Today, I’m a little ashamed to be an American. This is something I’ve said more than once, I’m ashamed to admit. When the Octomom got a movie deal, when Justin Beiber began wearing those ridiculous diamond earrings…it’s a fact: sometimes I’m ashamed of our culture.
However, it’s not just fertility-pumped wannabee celebrities and over-blinged boy superstars that annoy me. Today, I am ashamed because at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, there will be no chips.
McDonalds has taken control of the chip game, and isn’t really playing fair.
To know the English’s relationship with chips, you have to experience it firsthand. When I was 20, living in London’s East End, they were the thing that soaked up a night’s worth of cider. Big, newspaper wrapped cones that you drizzled with pungent malt vinegar and sea salt. Pick them up at the corner, and they’re gone before you reach the front door. Big, thick hunks of potato, with slightly crispy tops and spongy, delicious middles.
Very different in fact, than the “chips” McDonalds will be hawking at the Olympic Games. McDonalds is the official restaurant of London 2012, and has enacted a ban on any other vendor selling them. One loophole? If a vendor is selling fish and chips, but cannot sell them on their own. No chicken and chips, no burger and chips, unless you want to eat at McDonalds. Bada ba ba ba not loving it.
There has been a huge uproar over this, namely from the hundreds of workers preparing for the games. Caterers received a bye last week when they were allowed to serve chips to workers preparing for the opening ceremonies. However, the public will not enjoy this one-time leniency given to caterers. If you want chips, you better like them thin and crispy.
hope you like fish with your chips
I am as appalled as one can be when considering injustices relating to fried foods (read: really appalled, because I spend a lot of time and energy thinking of, and eating fried foods). For an American restaurant, a totally quintessentially American restaurant, to take over something so beloved in England, and not even give anyone the choice? It’s a downright monopoly.
What do you think? Any ex-pats out there that actually prefer McDonalds style chips? Or will the absence of those thick-cut, vinegar drenched lovely potatoes be a true tragedy? Or do I need to shut up and get back to talking about horses?
