I loved last weekend’s Saturday Night Live parody of the “Whopper Virgins” commercial (available at Eat Me Daily, perhaps funniest after reviewing the over-earnest original). I liked it in particular because it was so timely: I’m just now corresponding with photographer Davin Ellicson about us possibly teaming up for a story about rural Romania, exactly where the commercials are set, a place where people still wear traditional costumes and you can easily find “eastern European farmers who have never eaten a burger.”
My own experience is that most people in Bucharest seem to have eaten (and enjoyed) a Big Mac; the sprawling outdoor seating area of the McDonald’s on Piaţa Romană seems to be the city’s most popular hangout for teenagers. But outside the capital, you’ll quickly find plenty of the images Western Europe lost track of ages ago: itinerant Romany families seated around the ox-carts in which they live; folks in local costumes; traveling shepherds with their flocks. And despite joining the EU just over two years ago, Bucharest still often looks as timelessly Old World (and burger-free) as in the snapshot above.
