Gripe! ham and soap at seven

That said, the US is responsible for most of the homogenised crap that sullies our taste buds. I once went the Great Wall of China as a tourist and the first thing I saw when getting off the bus was a KFC. Dispiriting or what? Pizza Hut was next door.

I can't tell you how happy I was to see the KFC at the Great Wall. And every time a McD's sprung up in Chinese places I had to travel for business.

Beats the crap out of the local run restaurants that smelled like a latrine inside a fish cleaning shack. And trying to find a sit down toilet at the Great Wall when their "hygiene" kicks in was problematic, at best. Especially before they installed all those Olympic Toilets in the runup to the 2008 Games.

Not fair to rate USA food on the cheapest of the cheap places like McD's and KFC. Unlike some countries where it's possible -even easy- to eat cheaper than McD's and KFC, in the USA, it's not.

People forget that McD’s grew up when Americans were just starting to travel for leisure. No matter where you went in the country, the quality of McD’s food was going to be predictable. Not a gourmet dining experience, but predictable. (Clarification: the French fries were gourmet when they fried them up in lard- before the do-gooders screwed that up- but that’s another story for another day)

No more unknown greasy spoons and occasional Montezuma’s revenge in a strange town. Obviously, that was more important in the ‘50s and ‘60s before all the health regulations came into effect across the country. But very important today in locales where food safety standards are, well, not standard. Sound familiar?

The beauty of 7/11 in Thailand is like the beauty of McDonalds when I was growing up in the USA. Everywhere I go in Thailand, there's a 7/11 and the food (should be) consistent- if not spectacular. Find something I like in BKK, and it will probably be there in Songkhla and Kanchanaburi, and on the road, and...