Originally Posted by
CDTraveler
IMO it's the meat that makes the difference. Fast food places never used top quality beef, but IME it used to taste like beef, not a food lab experiment. Read up on "pink slime" and you'll never look at a burger the same way again. When the patties are flat, grey and have weird blobs of oozed "protein" all over them (I'm thinking of my last Five Guys experience) I wonder about what is really in them.
I suspect you're correct, but it would probably take someone who's been in the business, or a supplier to the business for the last 50 years to truly answer the question.
My recollection of restaurant burgers as a child was that they tasted like steak. That is the furthest thing from my mind when I bite into a restaurant burger today.
Now, by restaurant burger, I don't mean a QSR burger. That is another thing entirely, although that's what this thread is mostly about. Large QSR chains probably have much greater control over what they serve and I expect that there's more chemistry than cooking involved in the flavor.