Still lovin’ it: Jim Delligatti’s Big Mac changed American culture; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/7/16

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Still lovin’ it: Jim Delligatti’s Big Mac changed American culture:

"Not content with McDonald’s menu, he invented the Big Mac even though the chain initially rebuffed his efforts and he had to hunt down a sesame-seed bun with enough brawn to contain the two all-beef patties, special sauce and extras he packed into the 550-calorie sandwich. It first sold in 1967 in his Uniontown restaurant, one of nearly 50 he came to own. The Big Mac was a smash hit, establishing Mr. Delligatti as one of the most important ingredients in McDonald’s success.

Surprisingly, Mr. Delligatti told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1997 that he received no royalties from the sandwich that helped put the gold in McDonald’s arches. He received no big pay raise, either. “All I got was a plaque,” said Mr. Delligatti, who also developed the McDonald’s breakfast.

The Big Mac today is criticized for contributing to the nation’s obesity epidemic and couch-potato culture. Yet the Big Mac was a product of its time, and Mr. Delligatti did what inventors and entrepreneurs naturally do. He filled a niche, brilliantly."

Michael James Delligatti, Creator of the Big Mac, Dies at 98; New York Times, 11/30/16

Kevin Rawlinson, New York Times; Michael James Delligatti, Creator of the Big Mac, Dies at 98:

"Most memorable was the ad campaign, begun in 1974, in which actual customers tried to recite the ingredients in a Big Mac, with comic results, before a chorus jumped in and smoothly sang the now-famous jingle.

“It wasn’t like discovering the light bulb,” Mr. Delligatti told John F. Love, the author of “McDonald’s: Behind the Arches” (1986). “The bulb was already there. All I did was screw it in the socket.”...

...[T]he sales remain huge, leading many to believe that Mr. Delligatti, as its inventor, must have reaped a windfall worth billions.

Not so. “All I got was a plaque,” he told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2007."