New York - The man behind one of the most
recognisable fast-food sandwiches, McDonald's Big Mac, died this
week at age 98.
Michael James Delligatti invented the Big Mac - two beef
patties on a hamburger bun - which debuted at a McDonald's
restaurant in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1967.
McDonald's tweeted a message on Wednesday celebrating
Delligatti's contribution to the fast-food company where he was
a franchisee.
"Today, we celebrate the 98 inspirational years of Big Mac
inventor, Michael "Jim" Delligatti. Jim, we thank and will
forever remember you", the company said.
US media reported that Delligatti died at his Pennsylvania
home on Monday.
In a 2007 interview with Reuters, Delligatti said it took
two years to convince McDonald's that the Big Mac was a good
idea.
"I felt that we needed a big sandwich," he said. "But you
couldn't do anything unless they gave you permission."
The contents of the sandwich, immortalised by the popular
jingle
"two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onion
s-on-a-sesame-seed-bun" are generally the same worldwide,
although prices and nutrition value varies.
The US version of the Big Mac contains about 540 calories,
28 grams of fat and 25 grams of protein, according to the
McDonald's website.
Over the years the Big Mac's ubiquity has come to mirror
that of the Golden Arches itself. It is used to track the value
of foreign currencies against the US dollar in a "Big Mac
Index" published by The Economist magazine.