not a Big Mac kind

Matthew Yglesias goes on an extended rant in which he believes - or affects to believe - that there isn't anybody who hasn't tried a Big Mac. (Unless they're "a lifelong vegetarian" or "profoundly uncurious.")

I haven't tried a Big Mac. Why should I? It's clearly something I wouldn't like. A Big Mac is a McDonald's hamburger with a lot of extra crap on it. I like my burgers simple: maybe some steak sauce, perhaps a little onion. That's it. I've had burgers with a lot of extra crap on them. I don't like it.

And I've had McDonald's hamburgers, plain. I don't like those either. They're lousy hamburgers.

So why should I try a Big Mac? I've already triangulated it: two things I don't like put together, and not in a way that might make it unexpectedly good.

But I will agree with Yglesias on this: that if you're a food writer who's going to review a burger that's designed to be like a Big Mac done right - in which case you surely do like that extra stuff on your burger - and especially if you're going to directly compare it with a Big Mac, then you should have tried a Big Mac. Confessions of rank ignorance are rarely a good look on reviewers. Look things up, or try to write around your ignorance, not straight through it, or at the very least just say, as I might at a new-music concert, "Composer X is new to me." Don't boast of it.