I miss McDonald's old apple pies.
I was on the road and needing a restroom break. And even though I've spent thousands on Happy Meals when the kids were younger, I don't feel comfortable using the bathroom at McDonald's - or 7-11, OnCue, etc. - without buying something. It was close to lunch, so for $2.79 I got a six-piece order of McNuggets and a hot apple pie.
I've not had their apple pie in ages. Instead of the sugar-crusted hot pockets I grew up with, it's now thinner and taller with a lattice-like upper crust. While it's aesthetically pleasing, it takes all the fun out of the traditional McDonald's fried pie. Before, you could polish off two Big Macs and an extra-large order of fries, and still be reasonably assured you were going to burn your tongue off when you bit into the piping hot lava they called filling. And since you had already eaten your food, the only thing left to drink was whatever ice had melted in the bottom of your empty soft drink.
My most vivid memory actually comes from my college ROTC days when a group of us were coming back from a weekend of rappelling the cliffs at Robbers Cave. We ordered McDonald's to go and hopped back in the cab of our deuce-and-half truck. Back then, they also offered a blueberry fried pie. As my tongue began to flame and shrivel, the only liquid handy was a can of Budweiser held by one of our sergeants, a bonafide Green Beret snake-eating veteran of the Son Tay raid into North Vietnam. I can now tell you that the only thing worse than a burning tongue is the taste of blueberry and Budweiser. It remains the most awful thing to ever touch my taste buds.
No worries about that today. I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. The lattice let the filling cool to a nearly perfect warmness, and the flavor and slight sugary crunch of the crust hit the spot. No, it's not homemade or even close to an Arbuckle Fried Pie. It is, however, as good a sugar rush as you're going to find for 79 cents. But when our ancestors in the Jurassic Age went hunting for food, there was a 50/50 chance your food would eat you. Now, there is no longer an element of danger involved. And that makes me kind of sad. read more