French fries, chips, finger chips, french-fried potatoes, or simply fries are batonnet or allumette-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium or France. They are prepared by cutting potatoes into even strips, drying them, and frying them, usually in a deep fryer. Pre-cut, blanched, and frozen russet potatoes are widely used, and sometimes baked in a regular or convection oven; air fryers are small convection ovens marketed for frying potatoes.
A hamburger, also called a burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. The patties are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon or chilis with condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, relish or a "special sauce", often a variation of Thousand Island dressing and are frequently placed on sesame seed buns. A hamburger patty topped with cheese is called a cheeseburger.
A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast-food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast-food restaurants is typically part of a "meat-sweet diet", offered from a limited menu, cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, finished and packaged to order, and usually available for take away, though seating may be provided. Fast-food restaurants are typically part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation that provides standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
Poutine is a dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy. It emerged in Quebec, in the late 1950s in the Centre-du-Québec region, though its exact origins are uncertain and there are several competing claims regarding its invention. For many years, it was used by some to mock Quebec society. Poutine later became celebrated as a symbol of Québécois culture and the province of Quebec. It has long been associated with Quebec cuisine, and its rise in prominence has led to its growing popularity throughout the rest of Canada.
Gravy is a sauce often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with corn starch or other thickeners for added texture. The gravy may be further coloured and flavoured with gravy salt or gravy browning or ready-made cubes. Powders can be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts. Canned and instant gravies are also available. Gravy is commonly served with roasts, meatloaf, rice, noodles, chips (fries), mashed potatoes, or biscuits.
Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton suet, primarily made up of triglycerides.
The cuisine of Québec is a national cuisine in the Canadian province of Québec. It is also cooked by Franco-Ontarians.
There are multiple urban legends centering around the fast-food chain McDonald's. These legends include claims about the food and allegations of discrimination by the company.
Cheese fries or cheesy chips is a dish consisting of French fries covered in cheese, with the possible addition of various other toppings. Cheese fries are generally served as a lunch or dinner dish. They can be found in fast-food locations, diners, and grills mainly in English speaking countries.
Richard James McDonald and Maurice James McDonald, collectively known as the McDonald Brothers, were American entrepreneurs who founded the fast food company McDonald's. They opened the original McDonald's restaurant in 1940 in San Bernardino, California, where they created the Speedee Service System to produce their meals, a method that became the standard for fast food. After hiring Ray Kroc as their franchise agent in 1954, they continued to run the company until they were bought out by Kroc in 1961.
McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1955, Ray Kroc, a businessman, joined the company as a franchise agent and in 1961 bought out the McDonald brothers. Previously headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, it moved to nearby Chicago in June 2018. McDonald's is also a real estate company through its ownership of around 70% of restaurant buildings and 45% of the underlying land.
The American restaurant chain McDonald's has been criticised for numerous aspects of its business, including the health effects of its products, its treatment of employees, the environmental impact of its operations, and other business practices.
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries. McDonald's traces its origins to a 1940 restaurant in San Bernardino, California. After expanding within the United States, McDonald's became an international corporation in 1967, when it opened a location in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. By the end of the 1970s, McDonald's restaurants existed in five of the Earth's seven continents; an African location came in 1992 in Casablanca, Morocco.
Lard is a semi-solid white fat product obtained by rendering the fatty tissue of a pig. It is distinguished from tallow, a similar product derived from fat of cattle or sheep.
McDonald's Israel is the Israeli master franchise of the fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. Currently operated and licensed by Alonyal Limited, McDonald's Israel is the largest of Israel's burger chains with a 60% market share. It was the first Israeli outlet to be opened in 1993 and a major competitor of the local restaurant chain Burger Ranch. The world's first kosher McDonald's was opened in Mevaseret Zion in October 1995. After a sales decline attributed to consumer boycotts as part of the BDS movement, McDonald's Coporation announced in 2024 that it would buy Alyonal pending regulatory approval.
Al Bernardin was an American restaurateur and businessman who invented the McDonald's Quarter Pounder in 1971 as a franchise owner in Fremont, California. The creation of the Quarter Pounder earned him the nickname "Fremont's hamburger king."
A croquette is a deep-fried roll originating in French cuisine, consisting of a thick binder combined with a filling, which is then breaded. It is served as a side dish, a snack, or fast food worldwide.
Phil Sokolof was a multi-millionaire businessman and campaigner against heart disease. In the 1980s and early 1990s, his fight for heart health targeted the restaurant chain McDonald's. He is credited with using his own assets to help spur notable changes. The Los Angeles Times eulogized Sokolof saying, "In our big, complex bureaucratized society, there was indeed a case where one person made a difference, and where an idea had definite and beneficial consequences."
