"To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America." "Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from the California subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. He hangs out with the teenagers who make the restaurants run and communes with those unlucky enough to hold America's most dangerous job - meatpacker. He travels to Las Vegas for a giddily surreal franchisers' convention where Mikhail Gorbachev delivers the keynote address. And he ventures to England and Germany to clock the rate at which those countries are becoming fast food nations."--Jacket.
1. The Founding Fathers -- 2. Your Trusted Friends -- 3. Behind the Counter -- 4. Success -- 5. Why the Fries Taste Good -- 6. On the Range -- 7. Cogs in the Great Machine -- 8. The Most Dangerous Job -- 9. What's in the Meat -- 10. Global Realization.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 330-335) and index.
Summary
"To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America." "Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from the California subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many of fast food's flavors are concocted. He hangs out with the teenagers who make the restaurants run and communes with those unlucky enough to hold America's most dangerous job - meatpacker. He travels to Las Vegas for a giddily surreal franchisers' convention where Mikhail Gorbachev delivers the keynote address. And he ventures to England and Germany to clock the rate at which those countries are becoming fast food nations."--Jacket.
