Big Mac Maniac Eats 28,984th Burger in Memory of Sandwich Creator

FOND DU LAC, WI — Don Gorske ate his 28,983rd and 28,984th Big Mac sandwiches Wednesday after learning of the death of Michael “Jim” Delligatti, the man who invented the gastronomic extravagance that is a staple on the McDonald’s menu. The 63-year-old Fond du Lac man went to his usual McDonald’s restaurant on Military Road to observe the occasion.

Usually on Wednesdays, he would just pull one from the freezer and heat the burger in the microwave, but Delligatti’s death Monday at age 98 warranted a departure from his usual routine.

This is the stuff — “two all beef patties, special sauce lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun” — of world records (and, yes, he and his wife, Mary, have had personalized license plates over the years that, put together, spell out the ditty). Gorske has eaten more Big Macs than anyone else in the world and has claimed the Guinness world record for Big Mac consumption since 2001.

In 44 years, there have been only eight days that he hasn’t had a Big Mac. He claims Big Macs make up 90 percent of his solid food intake, a dietary constant since he first sunk his teeth into one on May 17, 1972.

“It was the best thing I ever ate in my life,” he remembers thinking at the time, and nothing since has come close.

The day Delligatti died was the same day Gorske received notification from Guinness World Records that his record remains untouched. It was also his 63rd birthday.

Gorske is not too worried about losing his status as a record-holder.

“Even if someone started now, I’ll be dead before they could match it,” he says. “And they’re going to have to be obsessive compulsive if they’re not going to eat anything else for 44 years.”

Gorske says he’s loathe to even suggest it.

“I wouldn’t want someone else to have a heart attack,” he says.

You might wonder why Gorske hasn’t had a heart attack, or worse, after having eaten two Big Macs a day since he wolfed down his first one almost half a century ago. But he’s 6 feet, 2 inches tall, weighs 200 pounds and the highest his cholesterol level has ever been is 160, which is in the healthy range. He gets a wellness check every year, he says, and no one has ever suggested he curb his appetite for Big Macs.

“I’m a very active person — hyperactive, you might say,” says Gorske, a retired prison guard at Wisconsin’s Waupun maximum security prison who now spends his days bowling with his buddies in a senior league or chopping wood with his brother.

“I use a lot of energy every day, so whatever calories I’m taking in, I’m using up,” he says. “I do enough hard work and consider myself in pretty good shape.”

• SEE ALSO: Inventor of McDonald's Big Mac Dies at 98

Mary, his wife, is not a fan of the sandwich. She’s not a big meat eater and has only eaten eight Big Macs in her entire life, Gorkse says. Their adult sons, Gabriel and Gideon, like them, though, and their lifetime consumption records are 281 and 321 sandwiches, respectively.

Mary is a nurse practitioner who would never advise any of her patients to eat only Big Macs, but she has acquiesced to her husband’s unusual diet. Her only condition is that he order a fruit parfait as well.

Gorske loves Big Macs, but he loves his wife more. So he’s happy to comply. He orders three of them on Mondays, along with six Big Macs — two each for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursdays, he orders eight more sandwiches and four more parfaits to last him through the weekend. Once a month or so, he’ll break out of the box a bit and order fries.

Big Mac Microwave Record?

Some days, he eats his Big Macs at the Military Road McDonald’s. He’s not just known there, he has his own booth, and the wall beside it is graced with his picture. It’s a spot more special than the sandwich sauce. Before the McDonald’s restaurant was torn down and replaced with a new building, the exact spot where the booth is located was the parking space where he proposed to Mary in 1975.

Gorske has gained so much celebrity over the years — besides the Guinness record, he has been featured in the documentaries “Super Size Me” (2004) and “Don Gorske: Mac Daddy” (2005), is the author of “22,477 Big Macs” (2008), has appeared on television game shows and has been interviewed dozens of times — that his diet no longer raises eyebrows around Fond du Lac.

But his habit of microwaving his stash of sandwiches does.

The milestone keepers at Guinness don’t have a category for that, but if they did, Gorske would likely claim that record, too.

“I love microwaved Big Macs,” he says. “No one loves microwaved Big Macs like I do.”

Gorske never met Delligatti, who died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in person, but the two spoke in a three-way conversation broadcast on a Chicago radio station on Sept. 4, 2007.

“I got to talk to him a bit,” Gorske says. “He was interesting, and seemed like a pretty nice guy.”

He learned some trivia. McDonald’s observes the birthday of the Big Mac on May 4, 1968, but Delligatti, who owned a franchise store in Pittsburgh, actually invented it on Aug. 24, 1967.

Wasteful Throne of Big Macs

Holding the record has some perks. In 2006, Guinness flew him to Dallas, where he had his picture taken on top of a throne of Big Macs.

“They threw them out then, and that really bothered me,” he says. “There were a lot of homeless people, and I thought we should give them away. They said, ‘No, we have to put them in the Dumpster first.’”

He also made a trip to the Big Mac Museum Restaurant, which Delligatti founded in a Pittsburgh suburb. Delligatti recognized him and had him sign a Big Mac cardboard box. Incidentally, Gorske has several Styrofoam Big Mac containers, which were eschewed because they’ll live longer in a landfill than a McDonald’s French fry will survive on the floor of your car. Today, McDonald's uses cardboard packages.

So you’re getting the picture: Gorske can’t imagine his life without Big Macs. When he travels, he keeps some in a cooler and eats them on the road. “If I miss a day where I don’t have one, I get kind of hyper,” he admits. “I’ve only missed eight days in 44-plus years.”

McDonald’s even gave him a guide book so when he travels he will always be able to satisfy his “Big Mac attacks.” Yes, he’s heard that cliche and all of the other tired old saws — and a few you wouldn’t want your mother hearing.

“Working in prison, the inmates said everything under the sun about Big Mac,” he says. “Anytime I was on TV, the inmates would laugh that the place would be rocking tonight.”

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Over the years, Big Macs have gone up in price from 49 cents in 1972 to today’s price of $3.99. He figures he’s spent well more than $100,000 to satisfy his craving. “But that’s money I don’t spend at the grocery store, and it’s over 44 years,” he rationalizes. “I’m not spending it on steaks or hams. I’m eating my favorite food every day.”

Oh, he and Mary will sometimes go out on Friday nights to eat perch, which he says is good fish but not something he would be interested in eating every day. He likes lobster, too, but hasn’t had that since 1996.

What happens if McDonald’s suddenly removes the Big Mac from its menu?

“I’ve spent so much money at McDonald’s over the years, I think they would be more than happy to keep making it, at least at the restaurant here,” he says.

Photo courtesy of Don Gorske