RIP inventors of General Tso's Chicken and Big Mac

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http://fortune.com/2016/12/02/general-tsos-chicken/ -and- http://www.thedailymeal.com/news/eat/bi ... -98/120216

A bit late, but the inventors of General Tso's chicken, Peng Chang-kuei, and the Big Mac sandwich @ McDonald's, Jim Delligatti, both died on the 30th and 28th of November, respectively. They were both 98. (Pretty crazy coincidence, huh?)

You can read the stories on how both food items were created; very amazing stories, to say the least.

Both men may be gone, but the culinary legacy they left behind will live on, and are forever secure. Here's to both men; and I say "Thank you, for making such wonderful food that is loved by so many.... and here's to both lives, very well lived."

I don't eat meat anymore, but the Big Mac was by far my favorite fast food culinary creation. Mr. Delligatti deserves a sainthood.

Never had General Tso's chicken, or at least I don't believe so. I don't go to Chinese restaurants very often. Nevertheless, my condolences to his friends and family.

Here's some McDonald's history about the "Big Mac" you'll not see in the newspapers.

Around 1975 I was doing manual labor, when I met an interesting individual named Bill (William) Barr.

While I had been working helping to install a large piece of machinery for a customer I took some photos and I did a little "darkroom magic" at home on them to make them look more interesting. Mr. Barr, it turned out, was a friend of the company owner I happened to be working for (Scientific Machinery Movers).

It turned out Mr. Barr had been thinking of getting back into the used machinery market, having been involved in other pursuits for a number of years. How this happened was one of those "fairy tale" stories you sometimes hear of:

As he described it he and others happened to be in their machinery sales establishment on Lake Street in Chicago when a stranger walked through the door. This person was walking into any and all companies and trying to sell people on investing in his new restaurant idea. This person was Ray Krock the future CEO of McDonald's fame.

Mr. Barr was an experienced businessman by this time and recognized a good idea/deal when he saw one. Mr. Barr used to say it was his investment money that built the first McDonald's restaurant in the chain (it was located in Des Plaines, Illinois).

But I'll skip over all the years (8) I worked for Barr Machinery, the photo lab and early marketing and get down to the reason for my post:

Mr. Barr (I'd call him "Bill") told me the story about the "Big Mac." Bill said they were looking for a new sandwich and someone had the idea of ripping off the Bob's Big Boy and naming it something else...and this is exactly what they did.

Bill said the only thing changed about the sandwich was the name...everything else was exactly the same.

So every time I hear the false story about the Big Mac I chuckle and think of the years I worked for Bill....what a trip, what a great person.