Just say no to NHHCW

Monday, July 26, 2010

I am by no means a food snob.  I don’t like tomatoes, ketchup and spaghetti sauce are fine because the tomatoes aren’t whole – it’s a texture thing. But what I don’t like is fast food cheese! American cheese is supposed to be a pale, pale yellow boarding on white, not orange.

I love Whoppers. Love ’em.  My Beloved David doesn’t. So we really don’t eat at Burger King often. A couple of days back I had to have a whopper.  (insert jingle here – hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us). Whopper, no cheese, no onions, no tomatoes.  That’s what the receipt said.  And the burger was 20 or 40 cents cheaper than David with cheese.  So out of the bag come the burgers.  The first one was wrapped cheese wrapper out – must be David’s. Next burger was identical.  Even though the order said no cheese, we weren’t charged for cheese, the burger still had that yucky orange goo on it!

Don’t get me wrong. I like cheeseburgers. Jitter’s in West Chester makes a mean, delicious cheeseburger.  But they use real cheese. Real american pale, pale yellow cheese. Not the orange nonpasteurized, homogenized, hydrolyzed cheese whiz (NHHCW) that’s been formed into a square!

And it turns out this problem is rampant. I posted a rant on FaceBook my problem and I was not the only one who a) doesn’t like the NHHCW on their burgers and b) can’t seem to order a burger and not get NHHCW.  And it’s not just Burger King.  Wendy’s and McDonald’s both have the love of NHHCW.  Taco Bell is another story. If they use NHHCW, they shred it enough to not be noticeable. And their cheese doesn’t seem to melt in your hands the way the other places’ NHHCW does.

And the more I think about it, I blame the management.

Now don’t get me wrong.  It’s my humble opinion that anyone who is working at ANY job, be it a CEO or a guy pushing a broom is, is at least trying. There is nothing wrong with being a fast food worker. And I understand how hard it is to motivate people to work – especially in a low paying job such as the fast food industry. Unfortunately it’s seem that the workers are just so pre-programmed to put NHHCW on every burger that goes before them that they can’t help themselves. 

So what’s a NHHCW hater to do? A dance? Who really wants to make a fool out of themselves in public like that? Although it might get me my 15 minutes of fame and help along the way to a NHHCW free burger.  A song? (re-insert jingle, hold the pickles, hold the lettuce…) Maybe we need to rerun that set of commercials. It’s been a long time.  Maybe we need a new one.  Or I guess what I’m going to have to do is have the people at the fast food place just check before they hand me my burger (that way it can be sold to someone else and not wasted).  And if it has NHHCW on it, ask them to redo it.

Please no NHHCW.