Argh, I was intending to skip my supper. No way, now !

but there is definitely something to be said for combining salty and sweet, especially chocolate.

Agreed. Apart from clasical ham & melon, try grapes, nuts and rich black bread, apples and cheese, or more mainstream ham and pineapple or venison with cranberries jam. Pancakes (thin ones, like those for creppes Suzette (sp?), filled with wallnuts and chocolate, with warm sauce made from eggs and white whine poured over, everything topped with fresh whiped cream, unsweetened) absolutely must have some salt in dough. Ah, one could go on for ages...

I would never put vinegar on McD's fries.

Neither would I, on potatoes of any kind or persuasion (except potato salad, in which case it has to be aceto balsamico di Modena (sp?) or some other form of strong vinegar made of red wine, with herbs; the choice between virgin olive oil or one made from baked pumpkin seeds is a tough one, though).

McD's a processed and reformed potato mulch - frozen fry.

In local McD french fries (we actually called them something like original French pommes frittes (sp?)) are decent: real potatoes, not potato starch granules. I was opponent of deep-freezing them myself untill I made a couple of experiments. It turned out that half-frying the sticks in not too hot oil, drying them, and later (after freezing or not) finishing frying in very hot oil produces optimal crispness outside while maintaning a degree or softness in the center. My only aditive is a lot of salt. That said, gravy is a welcome additive to potatoes that are somewhere halway between having been fried and baked (thicker sticks, baked in thin laywr of grease - preferably drippings from a nice piece of meat - in a hot oven, so that parts in contact with pan turn crisp and brown.

On Belgian mayo

I personally associate Belgium (aside from Hercule Poirot) with those wonderfull rich beers. Mayo somehow belongs to France to me, though my favourite brand is a domestic one, made here in Zagreb (I used to eat it directly from the tube when I was six or seven), as does mustard (Dijon mustard with green pepper made by Fauchon of Paris, eh...)

On McD

They do adapt somewhat to local circumstances. For example, here in Croatia the favourite burger is McCountry, made of pork rather than beef (which is probably thanks to BSE scare), but with additives and spices so that it actually has some taste (lot of fresh onions, letuce, tomatoes, hot mustard, cheese). Winter special is McBakon (which we call McSpeck - in Zagreb and whole NW of the country the colloquial word we use for bacon is a German one, like for many other things). Now they have a promotion where you can add extra slices of bacon into any burger.

Local sweet-and-sour McNuggets sauce is made from appricots. Weird! (They also have curry, mustard, BBQ, ketchup and mayo.)

I am really hungry now!