Not sure if it’s officially tied into our country’s 250th birthday this week, or if it’s just coincidence (note: I don’t believe in coincidences), but both McDonald’s and Taco Bell have brought back limited time runs of an old menu favorite. And earlier this year, Arby’s bent to the will of its own customer base and returned a once-discontinued icon of fast-food excess to its menu.
In the interests of quality journalism — the kind too many of the legacy media outlets are afraid to tackle — we are here to report on these important culinary developments. It seems particularly relevant as World Cup visitors from other countries are blowing up the Intraweb with their ongoing discoveries of the guilty pleasures of American fast food.
To begin this special report, I went and tried the legacy deep fried apple pies at McDonald’s. (Nod to the Screencaps column in Outkick, which first carried a version of this report on Monday.)
It was just as I remembered: Sweet and tart at the same time, with a fine crunch to the crust. There was still, as I’m guessing most of you will also experience, a bit of muscle memory anxiety when I swallowed — the roof of my mouth and the back of my throat still not ready to fully forgive nor trust me after being literally burned in this manner so many times in the past.
With age comes wisdom — we let them cool before eating them.
I’d also note that when I ordered my pies at the drive-through, the cashier said, “Let me make sure we have some ready — otherwise it’s a six-minute wait to cook new ones.” I was prepared to pull off to the side and wait in the interests of investigative journalism, but apparently I got the last of the previous batch. So be prepared to wait — and rest assured it’s worth it. (Just don’t allow your impatience and anticipation allow you to skip the cooling off part!)
While the local restaurants near where I live had the pies in a box rather than the cardboard sleeves I remember from my youth, the McDonald’s corporate website shows them in a sleeve — so it may well be that different franchises are using different packaging.
All I know is that they got the recipe right. (The deep fried apple pie was rolled out nationally in 1968, and dropped in 1992.)
We then made a run for the border to get the reconstituted enchirito, which was first served in 1970 and then dropped in 1993 — with periodic limited-time runs. It was and is a combination of an enchilada and a burrito, buried in a ton of Taco Bell sauce and covered with shredded cheese.
It too, tasted pretty spot on to what I remembered, with a couple noticeable differences. First, where were my black olives on top? Taco Bell management: Get large, industrial-size cans of sliced black olives delivered to every restaurant in the country ASAP!
The other difference is just a sign of the times, I suppose: The enchirito now comes in a standard plastic tray. Back in the day, though, it came in an aluminum tray — which lent the classic enchirito a certain metallic tang that only added to its charm.
I can also report that Arby’s permanently brought back their potato cakes earlier this year, after a trial run last year that resulted from customer angst over the 2021 decision to drop the longtime menu staple. (it was first introduced in 1964.)
It’s like a deep-fried hash brown — but in a large triangle. When cooked right, it’s heaven: crispy, crunchy, and just ready for two packets of Arby’s sauce to be slathered over it. But when undercooked, it’s a soggy blob of lead that sticks in your stomach all day.
But the good news is, by all accounts (and by “all accounts,” I mean by what my taste buds told me) Arby’s didn’t mess with the recipe. And the servings are huge — two of those big suckers per order!
(Particularly alert readers will note there there are no nutritional figures cited in any of the above items. If you’re going to McDonald’s, Taco Bell or Arby’s for the nutrition, you are likely beyond the capacity of this Substack to help you.)
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