In Canada, just like in China, eating at McDonald’s was a novelty for us. In the wake of post-Mao economic reforms, the belated introduction of the Golden Arches to China represented a whole ethos about what constituted the good life. Fast food might connote easy accessibility or overindulgence in the West, but McDonald’s presented a different kind of comfort for my family and me. The cost of a burger was hardly a trivial thing for us at the time, and my parents didn’t actually treat me to meals there all that often. When they did, we always got takeout so we could eat our burgers and fries around our Formica dining table, on our own plates. The hope was to have our fast food as slowly as we could.

The Filet-O-Fish became my menu item of choice. Its virtues are too many to count; doing so would be futile. As McDonald’s only seafood-based option, the Filet-O-Fish’s semblance of relative health appealed to my parents. Luckily it was also McDonald’s most delicious item. It played to my Chinese palate: While other McDonald’s buns were toasted, the Filet-O-Fish’s was steamed, much like the baozi2. From its honeyed starch to its tangy tartar and savory fillet, the taste of the Filet-O-Fish carries an ineffable umami-ness. At once sweet and sour, it reminds me of orange-chicken sauce: a plausibly Chinese flavor mass-produced in America. Eating one always felt transportive — the equivalent of Proust’s madeleine3 for my Chinese diasporic upbringing.

The Filet-O-Fish is the gold standard of fast food for many Asian-Americans, as well as other minority American communities. Invented by an Ohio franchise owner in 1962, the first Filet-O-Fish was the answer to the problem of McDonald’s falling sales on Fridays, when observant Catholics abstained from eating meat. Born from an attempt to market fast food to as many people as possible, the tasty little unit has since been further claimed by everyone from fish-loving Chinese-Americans to practicing Muslims to — well, anyone with taste. By 1965 the sandwich had gone national.

Its appeal is inscrutable, perhaps out of proportion to its paltry constituent parts. Consider the recognizably flaky fish patty, made from the ubiquitous Alaskan pollock. “Pollock is everywhere,” writes the marine fisheries biologist Kevin M. Bailey in the book “Billion-Dollar Fish.” “It is the pure white meat in fish sticks bought at Walmart and Filet-O-Fish burgers ordered in McDonald’s.” But you wouldn’t want the fish to be more interesting. The generic quality of pollock’s fishiness — common enough for various cuisines to lay claim to it — is part of its allure. So maybe what makes the sandwich beloved isn’t its taste at all, but the juxtaposition of its elements: A single fillet of fried fish, topped with a thin slice of American cheese and tartar sauce, all of it cradled in a bun whose impossible roundness suggests the triumph of industrial food production.

As a child, I was under the fantasy that my obsession with such a strange sandwich was eccentric. When I went to McDonald’s with friends who got Chicken McNuggets Happy Meals or cheeseburgers, ordering the Filet-O-Fish made me feel as if I was in on some sort of secret. After a few years in Montreal, my dad landed a good government job in Victoria, British Columbia. On our drive across Canada, we indulged in the prospect of my dad’s earning a real salary by eating at McDonald’s almost daily, a whirlwind of Filet-O-Fish meals (for me) and hamburgers (for my parents). But my experience was shattered when I, fancying myself different, pointed out that my parents both loved hamburgers while I, a renegade, preferred the Filet-O-Fish. “Well, I like the Filet-O-Fish most too,” my mother put it candidly. “But it is expensive, so we only buy it for you.”

These days, the sandwich is more expensive than ever; it’s also less beautiful than I remember. At some point, the Filet-O-Fish underwent rebranding: An ostentatious paper box replaced the modest blue wrapper, while what I remember being a full slice of cheese seems to have shrank by half. McDonald’s insists that the cheese has always been half a slice — so as not to overwhelm the fishiness of the fillet. Today’s unboxing experience most often reveals limp cheese sagging off the patty, frequently stuck to the ill-advised box. Where is the madeleine of my youth? Nowadays, a good Filet-O-Fish is hard to find.
Which of the following statements best encapsulates the author’s line of reasoning in the passage?
A.“...McDonald’s presented a different kind of comfort for my family and me.” (paragraph 2)
B.“By 1965 the sandwich had gone national.” (paragraph 4)
C.“Its appeal is inscrutable, perhaps out of proportion to its paltry constituent parts.” (paragraph 5)
D.“These days, the sandwich is more expensive than ever; it’s also less beautiful than I remember.” (paragraph 7, sentence 1)
E.“Nowadays, a good Filet-O-Fish is hard to find.” (paragraph 7, sentence 6)

The statement that best encapsulates the author's line of reasoning in the passage is "...McDonald's presented a different kind of comfort to my family and me."

The text revolves around the author's life experience, and his description of the period in life when parents had little money to frequent large restaurants, and therefore, on special occasions, frequented McDonald's.

The author, who is Chinese-Canadian, had as his favorite menu item the Filet-O-Fish sandwich, being the only McDonald's seafood option, and he was always chosen for generating identification with Chinese cuisine and culture.

The text therefore concludes with the author's reflection on the McDonald's differentiated sandwich that, even though it was made to reach as many people as possible, the author considered it an exclusive product for him.

Therefore, the correct alternative is the letter A.

Find more information about line of reasoning here:

https://brainly.com/question/21282642

Should the countries that contribute the most have the most say? Based on the UN

How could the presence of African American Stars in films have helped change white attitudes. toward black Americans?​

Answer the question shown on the image:) I will mark u brainliest

the authors of both documents write about the same event in different ways due to:

lack of information

author bias

they are secondary sources

one being from the perspective of an Armenia

it is thought that he created the gardens as a gift for his​

Please Help!
4.3.7 Discuss: Fighting Violence with Violence

1. Discuss whether it is right to fight violence with violence.
2. Was John Brown right in his actions? Consider the circumstances in 1859 and write a paragraph saying why you think he was or was not.

What were the working conditions in New England factories? How were they different from today’s factories

Which statement was one of Thomas Paine's arguments for independence?

Monarchy was a good form of government, but George III was a bad king.

The colonies needed Britain economically but should be able to govern themselves.


Britain's laws had helped the colonies, but it was time to break away for economic reasons.


It was foolish for a small island 3,000 miles away to try to rule a whole continent.

Works like the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano helped expose

Can propose __________ (changes) to the constitution.

The Latest Top Show Of The Patriotics
A. Jojosiwa
B. Abraham
C. Relationships With Oil
D. W.Bush
If two quantities are proportional, which must be true of a graph showing the relationship between them? Select all that apply.

What is the name for the series of declarations that detail a political party’s positions on election issues?

what activity does mrs van daan long for​

Which statements describe the aristocrats of the Heian period? Choose three correct answers

They lived in Helan kyo.
They lived all over Japan,
They were mostly farmers.
They built the culture of Japan.
They consisted of a few thousand people,
They made up the majority of the Japanese population

HELP ANSWER ASAP 20 POINTS

Drag each sentence to the correct location. Match each sentence with the stage of Roman history it describes.

The most important purpose of irrigation was to?

Historians label an event as a turning point when it:

3. What did John Locke believe in?


a. The government is run by business owners

b. The government is run by the people

C. The government is run by one person

d. The government is run by priests

Who is the last king of sri lanka

Which knowledge is radiometric dating based upon?

A: the sequence of layers in the rocks

B: the rate of decay of certain people

C: the name of the rock

D: the weight of the samples


please answer correctly because i need this grade

Which historical event had the high impact on the creation of the state of Israel


A) September 11th terrorist attacks

B) Sunni vs Shia conflict

C) the holocaust

D) the civil war

who was the founder of Pakistan?

Why was the alaska native brotherhood formed in 1912

What is something different Italy and France when they celebrate Christmas

Which of these terms best describes the official foreign policy of the United States at the start of World War II in 1939?

Describe President Hoover's reaction at the start of the Great Depression.

Question 1: Name the three locations where most immigrants first stepped onto American soil and give one fact for each. Question 2: Briefly describe what the experience was like for a typical immigrant family arriving at Ellis Island. Question 3: How was the experience for Asian immigrants at Angel Island different than of European immigrants at Ellis Island? Question 4: As you read the last two paragraphs of the assignment. complete the following to show how immigrant groups were held together and preserved their cultural traditions. One has been done for you in the chart ->> Look at the picture for this chart. Question 5: How did immigration change the United States? ( Will Mark Brainliest if answered correctly). ​

Select two ways the federal government has acted to extend minority rights.
by passing civil rights and voting rights legislation
by guaranteeing seats for underrepresented groups in office
by using troops to help ensure the integration of public schools
by requiring that federal office holders alternate political parties
by completing judicial reviews of bills before they are signed into law.

Think about the Article. How are the Dead Sea Scrolls and the
Copper Scroll different?
A. The Dead Sea Scrolls are lists of treasures, but the Copper
Scroll was a mostly religious text.
B. The Dead Sea Scrolls were opened with saws, but the
Copper Scroll was opened with a drill.
c. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves, while the
Copper Scroll was found in Jerusalem.
D. The Dead Sea Scrolls were mostly religious texts, but the
Copper Scroll was a treasure map.
10:28

What book is Bryan standing on