Iceland : Wave bye-bye to McDonald’s

Back in my North American incarnation, I used to be able to brag about the fact that in my home country there was not a single McDonald’s. I can still recall the look on people’s faces when I told them - like they were talking to a combination of an alien and a total pleb. [Granted most of the people I told back then were in their teens.] No McDonald’s ??? God - what did people EAT ??

Then, sometime in the 80s, McDonald’s descended upon this nation of singed sheep’s heads and pickled ram’s testicles, and suddenly it was like we’d lost our innocence.

To be fair, it is not McDonald’s per se who is leaving, but rather the people who have held the franchise have decided that, what with all the food needing to be imported [McDonald’s apparently doesn’t trust anyone else to make their delicious burger patties], it’s no longer viable to maintain in the current economic climate. So not only is the kreppa saving the children, it’s also vastly improving our culinary habits.

UPDATE : I stand corrected that McDonald’s doesn’t trust anyone else to produce their food. I spoke to the franchise owner this morning [wrote a little piece on this for The Guardian, will post link] who said that the main problem is that it’s not economically viable for such a small market to invest in the equipment needed for the production, hence everything has been imported from a McProduction plant in Germany. In the past, apparently, the burger patties were produced locally.

http://icelandweatherreport.com