14 things you never knew about the McDonald’s Big Mac
It’s 51 years old
In August 1968, a new super-burger called the McDonald’s Big Mac became available to customers across America. It had debuted the year before in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s location, and the franchise founder, Ray Kroc, was a fan. With his approval, the Big Mac went nationwide, and the rest is history.
It was created for steelworkers
The mastermind behind the Big Mac was Jim Delligatti, the owner of the Uniontown restaurant that debuted it. In the 1960s, many of his regular customers were workers returning from a long day at the steel mills. They would arrive at McDonald’s ravenously hungry, and Delligatti quickly realized that the simple single-patty cheeseburger wasn’t filling them up. So he started experimenting, putting two patties on one burger and adding pickles and onions as well.
“Special Sauce” didn’t get that nickname until 1974
In original Big Mac ads that launched across America in 1968, the flavourful concoction was advertised as a “secret sauce.” It wouldn’t be called by the alliterative name we know today until 1974, when the historically catchy “Two all-beef patties, special sauce…” jingle debuted. Despite the name change, and the ingredients remaining classified for years.
The Special Sauce has had a few different iterations.
In the first few years of the Big Mac’s burger life, McDonald’s experimented with two different versions of the sauce. Eventually, they realized that both recipes were performing well and ended up combining elements of both of them to make an entirely new recipe. McDonald’s called this sauce “Big Mac Sauce ’72.’” It wasn’t until 1991 that this classic recipe underwent any changes. A new version of the recipe debuted in that year and remained until the early 21st century. But in 2004, Fred Turner, a former McDonald’s CEO and onetime friend of Ray Kroc himself, decided that he wanted the original recipe reinstated.
Those buns have lots of seeds
According to Bryant Miesle, a McDonald’s correspondent for Golin PR Agency, “there are anywhere between 385-400 sesame seeds on each Big Mac bun.”
It owes its name to a company secretary
Would the McDonald’s Big Mac have sold as well as “the Aristocrat?” The answer, as executives learned, is no. Before the burger made its national debut, the franchise tested out a couple other names for it, including “The Aristocrat.” This name, however, failed to convey the idea that anyone and everyone could enjoy the burger. Not to mention, it wasn’t the easiest name to pronounce! It was Esther Glickstein, a then-21-year-old secretary for McDonald’s advertising department, who first suggested calling it the Big Mac. She admitted that the higher-ups initially laughed the name off when she first suggested it, but she got the last laugh when the name stuck!
The Whopper has been around longer
More than ten years longer, to be exact. The Whopper debuted in Miami, Florida, in 1957, only two years after Ray Kroc signed on with the then-fledgling McDonald’s company. Though the Big Mac enjoyed greater overall popularity than the Whopper, McDonald’s would, in 1997, debut a quarter-pound burger – you know it as the Big N’ Tasty – specifically to compete with the Whopper. Interestingly, that was the same year that Burger King introduced its first two-patty burger, the Big King.
One man has eaten 30,000 of them since the 1970s
No matter how much of a McDonald’s enthusiast you think you are, this guy’s got you beat! Wisconsin native Donald A. Gorske, 64, currently holds the world record for the most Big Macs ever eaten – he’s eaten at least one nearly every single day since 1972, simply because “it’s the best food in the world.” He earned the world record back in 2016 with his 28,788th Big Mac. In May 2018, he ate his 30,000th, and he doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
It’s McDonald’s second-bestselling item of all time
According to Miesle, McDonald’s sold over a billion Big Macs in 2017 alone. The only Mickey D’s item that’s more popular? French fries!
Switzerland has the world’s most expensive Big Mac
If you find yourself craving McDonald’s while in Switzerland, you should probably know that a Big Mac will set you back $6.89 there. Norway, Sweden, and Finland also have pricier Big Macs than the United States, where you can get one for around $5. Europe is actually also home to the world’s cheapest Big Mac; the sandwich costs only about $1.60 in Ukraine. Malaysia, Russia, and South Africa also offer Big Macs for around $2.50 or less.
There’s an entire museum dedicated to it
In North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh, McDonald’s Big Mac enthusiasts can visit the world’s only Big Mac Museum. Jim Delligatti, the Big Mac’s original creator, and his son Mike developed the museum in 2007. It features attractions like a 426-metre Big Mac statue, historical memorabilia (including a Big Mac bun-toaster from the 1970s), and, of course, a McDonald’s restaurant.
Pittsburgh renamed itself after the Big Mac
Temporarily, yes, but they still did it! In September 1992, in honour of the burger’s 25th anniversary, Pittsburgh became “Big Mac, U.S.A.” for a single day. It was a tribute to the city’s proximity to Uniontown, the Big Mac’s birthplace.
Kazakhstan was the most recent country to start selling it
“More than 100 countries serve the Big Mac, including Kazakhstan, which most recently added it to menus in 2016,” Miesle told Reader’s Digest. The Central Asian nation’s first Mickey D’s opened on March 8, 2016, in the capital city of Astana to a large, eager crowd. As of August 2018, Kazakhstan is the 120th country to open a McDonald’s, but only the first in the region of Central Asia.