Can you guess what THIS fast food is?

Zooming in on fast food favourites

Fancy yourself as a fast food expert? Visit the drive-thru on a weekly basis? Reckon you can tell famous burgers, pizzas and frozen treats apart from each other in a line-up of zoomed-in images and confusing close-ups? If the answer is yes, this is the quiz for you. It’s time to find out whether you’re a Big Mac master or KFC clueless.

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Every fast food chain sells a slightly different variation of this food: thin, thick, plain, spicy, crinkled. They’re easy to make but hard to get right. What are these crispy-looking strands and where are they from?

McDonald’s fries

Some of the best in the business, McDonald’s fries are ultra-thin, crispy on the outside and fluffy inside. But they haven’t always been this way. Did you know in the 1940s, McDonald’s used to serve thick-cut chips?

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Here’s a clue: that tempting drizzle of sauce is not mayonnaise and part of this dish comes from the sea. It was first launched to encourage more people to visit its restaurant on Fridays back in the 1960s and has been a controversial menu item over the years.

Filet-O-Fish

It was the soft steamed bun, breaded white fish, American cheese and tartar sauce of a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish. The dish is one of the restaurant's only pescatarian items and was created to solve the problem of low burger sales on Fridays (due to Catholics abstaining from meat that day).

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Easy to guess if you’re a fan of Cali-Mex, these have been on an American chain’s menu since the 1960s when they cost just 14p (19c). Even today, they’re still cheap as chips and one of the restaurant’s best-sellers.

Crunchy Taco

It was a Crunchy Taco from Taco Bell, filled with seasoned beef, shredded lettuce and shredded cheese. Nowadays, you can find Taco Bell in nearly 30 countries around the globe.

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What’s golden, crispy and covered in 11 herbs and spices? You'll find it at a restaurant whose name is just three letters and probably order with a side of gravy. It’s one of the most iconic fast food items in the world, not just America.

Original Recipe Chicken

Finger lickin’ good Original Recipe Chicken from KFC. Colonel Sanders began selling this from a petrol station in the 1930s and opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in 1952. Later on its full name was dropped and KFC was adopted.

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A fast food favourite named after the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit system, this multi-layered lunchtime treat was launched in the 1970s. The chain that sells it is the largest in the world.

Italian B.M.T

Although its adverts refer to it as Big. Meaty. Tasty., Subway’s flagship sandwich is actually named after the New York transport system. Featuring layers of pepperoni, salami, ham, salad and your choice of bread, the Italian B.M.T. has helped the fast food giant expand to more than 40,000 locations globally.

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Believe it or not, these date all the way back to the 1930s, when they were sold by the dozen to supermarkets. Food historians also say their secret recipe used to include mashed potato.

Original Glazed doughnut

It was the sugary glaze of a Krispy Kreme Original Glazed doughnut, which despite the brand’s myriad flavours is still one of the favourites. Glazed by a waterfall of warm sugar syrup, the recipe has barely changed over the years and is thought to have originally contained mashed potato.

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A close-up is not this fast food item’s most flattering angle, but we promise you it's one of the hottest, most-talked-about dishes of all time. Launched in the 1970s, at one point you could order it any time of the day, but not anymore. Now you can only enjoy it in the morning.

Egg McMuffin

This highly-coveted dish is an Egg McMuffin, which features a fried egg, American cheese and grilled bacon in a toasted English muffin. Sadly for fans in the US, the McDonald’s all-day breakfast menu was removed from most of its restaurants in 2020.

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Sweet, spicy and with a tiny kick of caffeine, this item seriously divides opinion. But whether you love it or hate it, the season in which it's sold comes around every year, so you may as well get on board.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

The drink everyone loves to hate, Starbucks’ signature seasonal offering features espresso, steamed milk, the flavours of pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, and whipped cream. It was launched in the early 2000s following a decade of pumpkin spice fanaticism. Although nowadays it’s easy to believe the drink was what caused the craze.

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Where the cheese is always messy, the buns squishy and the meat juicy, the restaurant that sells this item launched with a bang in the 1980s and changed fast food forever. More upmarket than its fellow vendors, here you can pick your toppings and munch on peanuts while you wait.

Five Guys Cheeseburger

Surely the glimmer of silver foil gave it away? It was a messy, close-up of a Five Guys Cheeseburger. What we love about this joint is that you can choose as many free toppings as you like, from pickles and grilled mushrooms to jalapeños and hot sauce. Also, that its thick, crunchy fries are cooked in peanut oil.

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What you can see here is the signature toasted pattern and folds of a relatively recent fast food item (compared to the others on this list). It may look plain on the outside, but it's a multi-faceted creation with many different layers, textures and flavours.

Crunchwrap Supreme

First introduced in 2005, Taco Bell’s Crunchwrap Supreme is a genius creation. For those who don’t know, inside the neatly-folded, hexagonal tortilla is its signature ground beef, nacho cheese, a crunchy tostada, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream, all layered up in that order.

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A chunky, frozen sweet treat named after a severe snowstorm. The red object to the right might give this one away if you’re able to identify which chain uses this colour.

Oreo Cookie Blizzard

It was an Oreo Cookie Blizzard from Dairy Queen. The chain launched Blizzards, soft-serve ice cream with different types of cookies, brownies and candy mixed in, in the 1980s. They were so popular in the first year, the chain sold 175 million of them.

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A fast food that needs no introduction. It was one of the first in the country and everyone knows it’s the best of its kind. Made according to a secret recipe that dates back to the 1960s, it has a juicy centre and is the perfect level of spicy. You can get it every day of the week but Sunday.

Chick-Fil-A Chicken Sandwich

How can a simple sandwich featuring seasoned and breaded chicken, two pickles and a toasted, buttered bun be so good? The recipe for Chick-Fil-A’s Chicken Sandwich is locked up in Atlanta, but that doesn’t stop hundreds of fans from trying to replicate it.

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This saucy, greasy fast food was created in 1960 by two brothers who borrowed money from their mum to start a business. The restaurant it’s sold at had a different name back then, but it was just as popular and expanded quickly.

Domino’s Cheese Pizza

One of the planet’s most popular pizzas, Domino’s has grown from a single store in Michigan to 17,600 locations in 90 countries, in 60 years. Customers can’t get enough of its signature floppy crust, generous coating of tomato sauce, thick layer of bubbling cheese and garlic dipping sauce.

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This is the flagship product of McDonalds' long-term rival. A hefty menu item launched in Miami in the 1950s. Back in the day it cost just 27p (37c).

Whopper

A great big burger featuring a 4oz (113g) patty, tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles and white onion in a sesame seed bun, Burger King’s Whopper predates the Big Mac. However, the McDonald's burger is seen as its biggest competition.

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A little-known fact about this fast food is that it comes in four different shapes. You probably like to dip them in barbecue sauce, ketchup or honey. If you’re feeling hungry, you can order up to 40 of them in a box.

Chicken McNuggets

Chances are you’ve never stopped to notice the shape of your McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets as you’ve been in such a hurry to tuck in. However, a company official has confirmed they do come in different shapes with names: the boot, the ball, the bone and the bell.

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Where you find ring doughnuts, you also find these. They come in a variety of flavours including glazed chocolate cake, blueberry and jelly. The sweet treats were launched by a global chain at the beginning of the 1970s.

Munchkin Donut Hole Treats

Originally launched by Dunkin’ Donuts as a way to make use of the excess dough cut out of the centre of doughnuts, Munchkin Donut Hole Treats are now so popular the company has designed cutters especially for the purpose of making them. Also, approximately five equate to one doughnut, if you were wondering.

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This drink arrived on a popular fast food chain’s menu in 1970. It’s not available year-round, only in the run up to a certain day.

Shamrock Shake

It's the minty green and whipped cream of a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake, only available in American restaurants around St. Patrick’s Day. It's been served during the month of March for 50 years, except for a brief period in the 1990s.

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A fast food item that has stood the test of time, this has been on the menu since the 1960s and even has a sauce named after it. In 2018, for a limited time, it was made available in three sizes to mark its birthday.

Big Mac

It was of course the sesame seed top bun of a McDonald’s Big Mac, a burger with two beef patties, a three-part bun, Big Mac sauce, pickles, lettuce, chopped onion and American cheese. An iconic burger, it’s so widely available around the world, The Big Mac Index is used as an economic tool.

For more Big Mac facts, check out the incredible history of the burger here