French Fries

French fries are not really French.

I didn’t know that until today. But I heard on the radio that fries were actually invented in the USA. That surprised me – the French are so good at cooking.

So I looked it up. And the radio was wrong.

The French fry is a tasty snack with a long history. It is believed to have been invented in France and brought to America by Thomas Jefferson, who was trained by the French in the art of cooking. The first fried potato was known as a pomme Pont-Neuf. It was a snack that was sold on the Pont Neuf, one of the oldest bridges in Paris.

In the 1700s, Belgian villagers were forced to substitute potatoes for fish because the rivers were frozen. This muddled the history of the dish, which later gained popularity among US soldiers in Europe during World War I. However, Leclercq finds this story implausible, and suggests that the invention of the french fry can be traced to a French-trained Bavarian chef.

Another theory claims that the French fry was first made in Namur, Belgium. This city was hit by a freezing winter in 1680, preventing locals from catching fish, so they fried potatoes instead. This practice spread to other parts of the country, including Belgium. This invention was so popular that it was named after the city.

Although French fries were originally made in France, they were first called this name in the United States around the 1850s. There are competing theories as to the origin of the dish, but the most popular theory dates back to the late seventeenth century in Belgium. People in the Meuse Valley cooked potatoes in a similar fashion, cutting them into fish shapes. This method eventually spread to France.