“There are fifteen hundred McDonald’s in France, a good enough place to grab 10 grams of protein for a Euro.”
Says Michael Fassbender’s titular killer six minutes into David Fincher’s The Killer, on Netflix. The Killer is a good film, Fincher does a great job reinventing his style and Fassbender is, as always, great. And yet… I couldn’t get the image of Fassbender dressed as a German tourist scarfing down a weird Ham McMuffin hack out of my mind for the entire duration of the film.
It’s little details and quirks that make fictional characters seem alive and real. But this fast food menu hack — which consisted of two slices of ham with fried egg sandwiched between them — filled me with questions to the point of distraction.
Why did he ditch the bun? Why would he order a Ham McMuffin over the sausage? Did he order the second piece of ham on the side or did he order two McMuffins, and combine them, in which case, where the f*ck is the second egg? What is he doing with all the bread? Do assassins not have time for cheese?! I don’t think it was Fincher’s intention for me to focus on a McDonald’s sandwich hack for the entirety of his film but also… how could I not?
With this week feeling a tad slow, I rolled up to McDonald’s, ordered two Ham McMuffins without cheese (even the person taking my order thought I was weird), as well as two sausage McMuffins with cheese so I could put my own spin on the hack. Here is what I discovered.
The Killer Ham McMuffin Hack
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
At first, I thought this sandwich might’ve consisted of two eggs but after seeing the way it looked stacked, there is no way Fassbender is eating two eggs in the movie; with two eggs this thing looks massive. So I went the one-egg route. As soon as I took a bite out of this reassembled sandwich I realized the genius behind Fincher’s choice — this is some psycho-killer shit.
You have to be a bit deranged to eat this sandwich. It is disturbing on so many levels. The texture is awful, without the bun a hot spotlight is put onto the weird mouthfeel of the ham. It’s incredibly rubbery, and the combination of sweet, thick ham and dry fried egg is legitimately one of the worst single bites of food I’ve ever experienced in covering fast food.
Handling the sandwich is also really off-putting. The ham is fleshy, and instantly holding this sandwich makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong. Something that should be illegal. Maybe not as bad as murder but also…kinda close.
After two bites I was done, I couldn’t handle this sandwich anymore. Let’s move on to what I hoped would be a better version, the same build but with sausage and cheese.
A Much-Less Disturbing Version Of The Same Sandwich, With Sausage And Cheese
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
For this alteration on the hack, I essentially built the same sandwich but with sausage patties and cheese instead of ham. As I built this sandwich I became convinced that The Killer did get cheese after all, it’s just impossible to remove the cheese once it’s been melded onto the English muffin top. I tried to carefully peel the sausage patty from the top bun but I was only able to get some of the cheese removed.
Biting into the sandwich I tasted black pepper, a meaty slightly sweet sausage flavor, a hint of salt from what was left of the American cheese, and a neutral dry egg flavor. I’d like to say that this keto-friendly hack was a huge improvement over the ham version but it’s not. Note really, at least. It’s only slightly better but still a sad comparison to eating the sandwich as it’s intended with the bun.
Turns out most of what makes a McMuffin good is the muffin. Who knew?
The Bottom Line:
This hack and any alteration of it that involves removing the bun is only for the disturbed. Even if you’re living that keto lifestyle, there has to be a better option than this! Now replacing the bun with a hashbrown in its place… that might be a hack worth trying.
Find your nearest McDonald’s here.