McDonalds is a world-wide burger franchise which purveys disgusting food to millions of people every day. It was originally called MacDonalds, taking its name and its inspiration from the tale of the Scottish Clan MacDonald which is credited with inventing the precursor to the hamburger which consisted of a slice of haggis placed between two oatcakes garnished with a piece of soggy lettuce, something purporting to be tomato and some whitish sludge laughingly called mayonnaise.
The first burger joint was opened in Milwaukee in 1934 selling essentially the same product as the old Scottish clan except that the oatcakes were deemed to be too healthy and so were replaced by baps. The opening sparked a three year legal battle in which Clan MacDonald sued over the use of its name. Interestingly, it had originally attempted to sue over the use of their recipe but this was laughed out of the Scottish Court of Session which believed that Scotland should be thankful that another nation was prepared to take responsibility for the appalling dish.
The dispute was settled by the ingenious device of dropping the 'a' from Mac thereby indicating that the product was entirely unconnected with Scotland.
Further controversy hit the franchise in 1996 when vegan groups picketed branches across America and Europe in protest at the lack of a vegetarian option. McDonalds responded by placing 'Salad with Fries' on every menu.
