"I've been in training for an eating assignment all my life," says Midwest Correspondent Edwin Reingold, who has eaten hamburgers in all their guises and disguises in Latin America, Kenya, the Congo (now Zaire), France and Japan. But a cooking assignment, as he discovered while reporting this week's cover story on the McDonald's hamburger empire, is another matter. While Reporter-Researcher Sue Raffety lined up professional gourmets to sample McDonald's cuisine, and Contributing Editor Donald Morrison began to serve up the story on his typewriter. Reingold set out to probe the inner workings of the empire by working behind the counter at a McDonald's in Illinois. His report:

"The sun rises like a giant cheeseburger over Naperville's golden arches as the early crew slogs on with its 5 a.m. ritual of scrubbing, vacuuming and window washing. At 1 a.m. customers start wandering in and by 11 a.m. all 20 cooks and countergirls are busy turning out burgers, fries, shakes, fish sandwiches and apple pies for the fast-thickening lunchtime crowd.

"Putting on my apron and my jaunty red paper cap that falsely identifies me as the manager. I watch in admiration as 16-year-old Grillman Dick Caspermeyer fries his Quarter-Pounders. He lays them on the grill, flips, swivels, scrapes and dispenses them with the speed and grace of a natural athlete. Little do I realize that I will soon fail miserably at imitating him.

"At 12:30 p.m., just as the lunch crowd begins to subside, Manager Ralph Follin slaps a stack of quarter-pound beef patties into my hand and leads me to a sizzling, lightly greased grill. 'You're on,' he says. I flop them crudely, unevenly on the grill and find a salt shaker thrust into my hand. 'Salt,' he commands. I salt.

'Now hit the timer,' and I reach up and push the timer button. This is easy, I think, and start to relax. 'Scrape your grill,' he orders sharply, and I start rubbing it with the scraper.

'No, get the edge into it,' Follin corrects. I look over the grill and see two dozen customers staring at me--accusingly, it seems. 'Hey, your light is out!' Follin shouts.

"I lunge for the spatula and flip the burgers over, splashing grease all over my apron. 'When you lift them, don't be afraid to get your fingers on them--they aren't hot,' he lies. I turn to face a bewildering array of buns, cheese slices, onion pieces, ketchup, mustard and unidentified sauces. Dick Caspermeyer comes over and shows me how to apply them. I scrape down my grill again, better this time. Soon it is 1 p.m. and there are no new orders for Quarter-Pounders. I place my spatula and scraper aside, hangup my hat and apron. 'Not bad,' Follin says--'for a reporter.' "

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