French fries (North America; sometimes also uncapitalized as
"french fries" or simply "fries"), or chips (United Kingdom,
Republic of Ireland, and most Commonwealth nations), are
pieces of potato that have been Batoned and deep-fried.
In areas where "chips" is the common term, "French fries"
usually refers to the thinner variant found in US-influenced
fast food restaurants, or to the even thinner "shoestring
potatoes". In North America "chips" generally means potato
chips (called "crisps" in the UK and Ireland), which are
deep-fried, very thin, salted slices of potato that are
usually served at room temperature. In Australia "chips"
refers to any form of fried potato. A more recent hybrid of
thicker cross-cut splicings, and generally eaten hot, is
"waffle-cut potatoes" (not to be confused with potato
waffles made from reconstituted potato).
The straightforward explanation of the term is that it means
potatoes fried in the French sense of the verb "to cook",
which can mean either sautéing or deep-fat frying, while its
French origin, fire, unambiguously means deep-frying :
frites being its past participle used with a plural feminine
substantive, as in pommes de terre frites ("deep-fried
potatoes"). Thomas Jefferson, famous for serving French
dishes, wrote exactly the latter French expression. In the
early 20th century, the term "French fried" was being used
for foods such as onion rings or chicken, apart from
potatoes.
The verb "to french", though not attested until after
"French fried potatoes" had appeared[citation needed], can
refer to "julienning" of vegetables as is acknowledged by
some dictionaries while others only refer to trimming the
meat off the shanks of chops. In the UK "French-trimmed"
lamb chops (particularly for serving as a 'rack of lamb')
have the majority of the fat removed together with a small
piece of fatty meat from between the ends of the chop bones,
leaving mainly only the meat forming the "eye" of the chop
attached.
Belgians claim that "French" fries are in fact Belgian, but
definitive evidence for the origin has not been presented.
Belgian historian Jo Gerard recounts that potatoes were
already fried in 1680 in the Spanish Netherlands, in the
area of "the Meuse valley between Dinant and Liège, Belgium.
The poor inhabitants of this region allegedly had the custom
of accompanying their meals with small fried fish, but when
the river was frozen and they were unable to fish, they cut
potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil to accompany their
meals.
The Dutch concur with a Southern Netherlandish or Belgian
origin when referring to Vlaamse frieten ('Flemish fries').
In 1857, the newspaper Courrier de Verviers devotes an
article to Fritz (assumed pun with 'frites'), a Belgian
entrepreneur selling French fries at fairs, calling them "le
roi des pommes de terre frites". In 1862, a stall selling
French fried potatoes (see frietkot) called "Max en Fritz"
was established near Het Steen in Antwerp.
A Belgian legend claims that the term "French" was
introduced when British or American soldiers arrived in
Belgium during World War I, and consequently tasted Belgian
fries. They supposedly called them "French", as it was the
official language of the Belgian Army at that time. But the
term "French fried potatoes" had been in use in America long
before the Great War.
Whether or not Belgians invented them, "frites" "quickly
became the national snack and a substantial part of both
national dishes — making the Belgians their largest per
capita consumers,[citation needed] and to Europe, their
"symbolic" creators.
Many Americans attribute the dish to France — although in
France they are often thought of as Belgian — and offer as
evidence a notation by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. "Pommes
de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches" ("Potatoes
deep-fried while raw, in small cuttings") are noted in a
manuscript in Thomas Jefferson's hand (circa 1801-1809) and
the recipe almost certainly comes from his French chef,
Honoré Julien. It is worth noting, though, that France had
recently annexed what is now Belgium, and would retain
control over it until the Congress of Vienna of 1815 brought
it under Dutch control.[12] In addition, from 1813[13] on,
recipes for what can be described as French fries, occur in
popular American cookbooks. By the late 1850s, one of these
mentions the term "French fried potatoes."
Recipes for fried potatoes (not clearly specified how) in
French cookbooks date back at least to Menon's Les soupers
de la cour (1755). It is true that eating potatoes was
promoted in France by Parmentier, but he did not mention
fried potatoes in particular. And the name of the dish in
languages other than English does not refer to France; in
French, they are simply called "pommes de terres frites" or,
more commonly, simply "pommes frites" or 'frites'.
United Kingdom
The first chip fried in Britain was apparently on the site
of Oldham's Tommyfield Market in 1860. In Scotland, chips
were first sold in Dundee, "...in the 1870s, that glory of
British gastronomy – the chip – was first sold by Belgian
immigrant Edward De Gernier in the city’s Greenmarket."
Although the thicker cut English style of chip was already a
popular dish in most Commonwealth countries, the thin style
of french fries has been popularized worldwide in part by
U.S.-based fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King.
This came about through the introduction of the frozen
French fry invented by the J.R. Simplot Company of Idaho in
the early 1950s. Before the handshake deal between Ray Kroc
of McDonald's and Jack Simplot, potatoes were hand-cut and
peeled in the restaurants, but Simplot's frozen product
reduced preparation time and aided the expansion of the
McDonald's franchise. One of the few fast-food chains that
still prepares fresh potatoes on the premises is In-N-Out
Burger. Others are Nathan's Famous, Five Guys, Harvey's in
Canada, and Penn Station.
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