Instagram Is Strongly Divided Over This Surprising McDonald's Chicken Nugget Hack
"Here's another Macca's hack that you may not like." With such an encouraging introduction, Jonny Massaad, an Australian baker (via Newsweek), readied Cake Mail's Instagram followers with his out-of-the-box flavor combination: McDonald's chicken McNuggets and its famed apple pie. Having given fair warning, Massaad proceeds to cut open the end of the pastry, scoop out the apple, and shove a whole chicken nugget into the emptied pocket. Massad dunks the nugget pie into sauce and bites. "Honestly," he says after swallowing and smiling, "this is the best way to eat chicken nuggets. It's so crunchy. Please try it."
The reactions to the hack fell along the lines familiar to anyone who follows things that divide Instagram. Sophie Monk approved with a "Yummmm," while other positive responses included "YES!!!!" and "We're going to need to try this." An Instagram user with high hopes wrote, "Haha I feel like this would actually taste amazing." However, many – very many, actually – expressed disapproval.
While a yay-sayer raved, "jesus christ, thank you for this, can't wait to try it," on the naysayer end of the spectrum, someone denounced the hack as "blasphemous." "That's so weird," a different person opined. "NOOOO BROOO WHY," another wailed. One commenter remarked, "Omg no way." It seems clear that the people who had the latter reactions are unlikely to try the hack anytime soon.
Would the nugget-pie hack work?
The question that remains is whether such a combination simply pleases the idiosyncratic taste of Jonny Massaad or there is something more broadly appealing about the hack. As Spoon University has noted, the pairing of chicken and apples is nothing too out-there. Even with the apple chunks removed, the residual taste of the apple filling probably permeates the interior of the pastry.
Newsweek actually reached out to Massaad to see if the baker would elaborate on the thought process behind the innovation. He did. "The apple pie is iconic," he explained, "so I thought to combine it with chicken nuggets to add a savory element to the iconic crispy crust. I have been doing this for a while now. I genuinely think it just adds something else to chicken nuggets! The extra crunch."
There may be something to the crunch theory. Verne Verona argues that making food with strong contrasts in texture "creates a satisfying sense of meal content variety." So, while some may have hang-ups over combining the crust of a dessert pie with chicken, others may respond well to a flavor pairing and contrast of textures that makes sense to their palates.