The great philosopher John Travolta once observed that, in France, a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is known as a "Royale with Cheese", while they call a Big Mac "Le Big Mac" and allow you to wash it down with beer. That's the "funniest thing" about Europe, he concluded, during the often quoted opening scene of Pulp Fiction: its people have embraced American culture without entirely losing their soul. "A lot of the same shit we got here, they got there. But there, they're just a little bit different."

Another thinker, Thomas Friedman, has also used McDonald's to riff about globalisation. In his bestselling book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman famously ventured that: "No two countries that both had a McDonald's had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald's." Once a nation dines under the golden arches, he argued, it buys into freedom, democracy, and the American way. Children who grow up eating Happy Meals would rather spend their lives scoffing mass-produced burgers than making war.