Restaurant California

In the movie Supersize Me, director Morgan Spurlock rakes McDonald's over the coals for their near-poisonous food. It's no rocket science to conclude that McDonald's is not a place we ought to eat at regularly, though of course they're America's most popular food vendor, and have spread like a virus around the world. (I can't be too hard on them, as they pour the best Diet Coke anywhere; and if Morgan Spurlock takes on Diet Coke he'll have to answer to me.)

But one especially interesting thing to me in the film is his profile of the California chain In-N-Out Burger. Actually, I think this focus comes from Eric Schlosser, who wrote the book Fast Food Nation, and who is interviewed by Spurlock in his documentary. The idea is that while cheeseburgers and french fries may never qualify as health food, it is the way the big chain restaurants cook up the quintessential American meal that makes it such a deadly diet. McDonald's in particular have managed to formulate an entire menu of pointedly harmful nutritive content, and then thru brilliant marketing put that menu within arm's reach of the whole country. (I should say that one of the chief criticisms of the film--most vocally, of course, from McDonald's itself--is that their practices are mirrored by many other companies with whom they compete; McDonald's was singled out because of their high profile, or so the criticism goes.) In-N-Out is held up as an example of how a company can do these foods and not kill its patrons, and make a healthy profit at the same time, putting the lie to the idea that McDonald's ravenous profit motive precludes healthy choices. Indeed, In-N-Out is noteworthy for paying its employees considerably above the industry standard.

In-N-Out were formed in 1948 and have fiddled relatively little with their simple rules. They have a small menu--burgers and fries, shakes and soda--and everything is made to order. You have to wait, but because they do only a few things and have worked the process out to every fine detail, the wait usually doesn't amount to much. Everything is fresh--no freezing. Bread is made simply and daily (though not, I believe, on site), potatoes are received at the stores whole and processed just-in-time. One of the cornerstones involves their beef: they process it themselves in a single plant to ensure high quality control, and they never freeze it; so the restaurants exist only within a truck's driving range from this single plant. The expansion of the chain beyond the West / Southwest would require additional beef processing plants or to let someone else provide the beef, both of which they refuse.

Their french fries are especially interesting to me, though I've only had them once a year or two ago (thanks to my always seeming to be on a low-carb diet when I'm in Ontario). They have used a cholesterol-free pure vegetable oil since day one, and the potatoes are peeled and washed and cut right before going into the fryer. (This is contrasted with McDonald's, where the fries are just jesused to the restaurants from godknowswhere and nobody even seems to know what they're made of. In Supersize Me, Spurlock puts an order of McDonald's fries under glass, and they appear absolutely unchanged weeks later.) It's a common sight for an In-N-Out worker to be putting a pile of a couple dozen softball-sized potatoes thru a hand-powered cutter right next to the fry bins. The diced potatoes fall from the cutter into a sink with running water, and are then quickly drained and put into one of several fry vats, depending on the individual order. Nothing is pre-made, no matter the length of the lines, and the fries are available in a variety of ways, patrons being able to specify the amount of salt, the length of cooking time, and additional ingredients from onions to cheese to a special dressing similar to thousand island (available on burgers and fries).

There are a number of ordering options which are not advertised nor listed on the small menu. The most popular of these is to order your food "animal style." For burgers, this adds a mustard-cooked patty with pickles, lettuce and tomato, the special dressing ("spread"), and grilled onions; for fries, animal style includes the spread, two slices of cheese and grilled onions. Watching my carbs, I order my burger "protein style," which replaces the bread with leaf lettuce (which, if you'd eaten your first burger this way, would seem a really natural and delicious way to eat a hamburger). You can also order your burger "flying dutchman," which is just patties and cheese and nothing else. The Wikipedia site lists several others.

One disappointing thing I learned from the Wikipedia site is that there are little biblical references hidden on the company's packaging, a reference to the founding family's mystical convictions. But hey, everybody's got a little bit-o-nutty in them, and there are so many other virtues that I have to forgive them.

I'm food-obsessed, of course, but the fact that there's an In-N-Out Burger next door to our hotel in Ontario is almost reason to bid that trip. (Now I'm in Tennessee, and all this burger talk has made me hungry!)