The Big Mac Theory of Perfume

Living in a foreign country naturally makes you rediscover yourself—and your own country.

I moved to Paris because of a new chapter in my wife’s career. I had never imagined myself living here, partly because I do not particularly enjoy major changes in my lifestyle. To my surprise, however, I am enjoying most of it—apart from the inevitable forms of torture that come with living in France, such as occasional food poisoning and French classes. The French seem to regard both environmental hygiene and comprehensible grammar with a certain philosophical flexibility.

As naturally happens when you begin living in another country, I developed a mild case of homesickness. My first instinct was to seek comfort in familiar food. Unfortunately, even in Paris—and unlike New York—it is surprisingly difficult to find a good Japanese restaurant at a reasonable price.

One day, I decided it would be easier to console myself with a Big Mac.

I had always believed that McDonald’s represented the gold standard of consistency: the same menu, delivered the same way, almost anywhere in the world. That, after all, was part of the genius of fast food.

But the Big Mac I ordered at a highway service area on the way back to Paris looked nothing like a Big Mac and tasted both strangely sweet and completely bland. It was not necessarily a bad burger. It was simply a very weird one. I will probably never order another Big Mac in France.

McDonald’s arrived in Japan when I was thirteen, and I went there constantly through my twenties. Now that I am more conscious of what I eat, I probably have a Big Mac only once a year. It has become a kind of treat.

Perhaps because I was craving American food—or because I was still frustrated from recovering from a bacterial infection in July—I had three Big Macs during the three weeks I recently spent in New York.

The Big Mac may have shrunk since it first appeared more than half a century ago, but, boy, it still tastes good. Each time, the pleasure and satisfaction felt as complete to me as a meal at a traditional kaiseki restaurant in Kyoto or a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris.

I am not suggesting that a Big Mac belongs to the same culinary tradition. But I began to wonder whether it might nevertheless be a masterpiece in the history of food.

Its architecture is instantly recognizable. Every element has a specific function. Nothing is precious, yet nothing can easily be removed without changing the whole experience. It is accessible, comforting, distinctive and almost impossible to imitate convincingly. It has survived changing tastes, health warnings, cultural criticism and more than half a century of fashion. And even after all that familiarity, the real thing can still produce an immediate emotional response.

That is not such a ridiculous definition of a masterpiece.

So now I find myself considering a much more serious question: What could be the Big Mac of perfume?