Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Why are French Fries called French Fries?

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Everyone loves french fries. It is one of the few things which most people can agree on in the world today. The average American consumes over 16 pounds of them every year, and they have become a staple part of the cuisine in countries all over the world. Yet, why do American’s call them “french” fries? What do the French have to do with it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone loves French fries. It's one of the few things which most people can agree on in the world today. The average American consumes over 16 pounds of them every year, and they've become a stable part of the cuisine in countries all over the world. Yet, why do Americans call them French fries? What do the French have to do with it? Learn more about the history of this ubiquitous food and learn what the French did or did not have to do with it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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This episode is brought to you by audible.com. If you're interested in the history of what we eat and how it came to be that way, the book I'd recommend is Consider the Fork, A History of How We Cook and Eat by B. Wilson. In it, she goes into detail of how the techniques in the kitchen have shaped how and what we eat, everything from the 20,000-year-old mortar and pestle to the microwave oven. You can get a free one-month trial to Audible and two free audiobooks by going to audibletrial.com slash everything everywhere,

or by clicking on the link in the show notes. Before we can talk about the French fry, we first have to back up and talk about the origins of the potato. The potato originated in South America, where the people there have been cultivating it for thousands of years. It was first brought to Europe by the Spanish in the late 1500s, where they found it to grow quite well. And fun fact, the monastery garden in Guadalupe, Spain, was the first place outside of the Americas where the potato was grown. Potatoes were probably brought there because it was where Queen Isabella was staying. and I was told this because I took a tour of the monastery two years ago. I'm not going to go into too much depth because, believe it or not, the story of the potato is actually really important,

and it was responsible for much of the growth of Europe in the 18th and 19th century, and I may dedicate an entire episode to it in the future. The potato wasn't accepted at first. Many people thought it caused diseases like leprosy, and it was mainly used to feed pigs. The popularity of the potato was largely due to one man. Antoine Augustus Parmentier During the seven years' war, he was captured by the Prussians and spent time in a Prussian jail where he was given potatoes to eat.

He found them to be extremely edible and realized that the beliefs held about potatoes back in France were false. Upon his release, he began heavily promoting potatoes. He did publicity stunts like holding potato-themed banquets for the nobility in the king, and growing a potato patch and putting heavily armed guards around it to make the crop seem more valuable. He then told the guards to accept any bribes from people who wanted to steal the potatoes and to turn a blind eye to anyone who snuck in in the middle of the night to take them. By the French Revolution, potatoes were really taking off in France. There were streetcarts serving fried potatoes, which became known as Freetz, which is what they're known as today in French. We can pin down a date thanks to Thomas Jefferson, who in 1802 had his chef, a Frenchman named Honorie Julianne,

prepare a menu for a White House state dinner with potatoes served in the French manner. They were described as potatoes deep fried while raw in small cuttings. That's pretty close to describing French fries as we know them today. However, while we can confidently pin down this 1802 date as a first instance of the word French and fried being used for potatoes, that doesn't mean the idea originated in the late 18th century France. One popular version of the French fry origin story holds that in the late 17th century, and what is today the Muse Valley in Belgium, people regularly would fry small fish as one of their

staple foods. When there was no fish, they would cut up potatoes into thin strips to mimic the shape of a small fish, and then they would fry those. This technique, according to this version of the story, then spread to France when potatoes finally became a popular and acceptable food 100 years later. This seems to be the best evidence of where the ideas of fried potatoes originated from. Somewhere in what is today France or Belgium, people began frying potatoes around the end of the 17th to late 18th century. But why do Americans call them French fries? There is no universally agreed upon explanation, but there are several competing theories. The first is what I mentioned above.

Thomas Jefferson and others began cooking potatoes in the French way. This implies an early adoption of what was called the French technique, which was deep frying. The second explanation comes from Ireland. In Old Irish, to French something means to cut into small pieces. When the great Irish migration to the U.S. occurred starting in 1845 due to the Irish potato family, they brought with them to the United States the dish of French potatoes, which were fried. They then became French fries. The country of France really doesn't have anything to do with it.

The third explanation, and the one which is championed by the Belgians, is that in World War I, American soldiers were served the dish in Belgium where they were called fritz. Because the Belgian spoke French, the Americans called it French fritz, which quickly got Americanized into French fries. The World War I story, as endearing as it might be, is almost certainly not true. The first written occurrence was in 1856 in the book Cookery for Maids of All Work by British author Eli author Eliza Warren. There are also several other mentioned of French fried potatoes in the United States in the 1850s as well. Americans also have a bunch of other words for fried potatoes. Thicker-cut ones are called steak fries, which are closer to the British chips. American fries are just fried chunks of potato. And of course, there is also the self-described waffle

and curly fries. So if Americans call them French fries, why do the British call them chips? This is actually a much more straightforward story. A cut piece of fruit or vegetable was called a chip. Fried fish and fried chipped potatoes were separate dishes, but eventually combined to make the staple known as fish and chips. The first known fish and chip shops were in London in the 1860s. Fish and chips is undoubtedly the national dish of the United Kingdom. Oddly enough, fried potatoes have that distinction in several other countries as well.

In the United States, a hamburger with French fries is pretty much as classic American cuisine as you're going to find. In Canada, the national dish is Poutine, which is really a dish that originated in Quebec, which is French fries, covered in gravy, and cheese curds. Finally, Belgium has never given up the tradition. Plain old fritz and a paper cone with mayonnaise is probably the most well-known food in the country. Belgium, to this day, has the highest per capita consumption of fried potatoes in the world. While I'm on the subject, I should give a shout out to the potato chip, or what the British is. call crisps. The American legend is that an African-American restaurant owner, George Crumb from

Saratoga Springs, New York, invented them in 1853. According to the story, one of his customers was served fried potatoes and sent them back because they were too thick. Crumb, angry at having to prepare another dish, this time cut them so thin that they couldn't be eaten with a fork. Surprisingly, they were a massive hit and were soon called Saratoga Chips. In some versions of the story, that customer was Cornelius Vanderbilt. Sadly, this story, too, is probably apocryphal, as there are mentions in cookbooks as early as 1822, which mention potatoes fried in slices or shavings.

Whether you call them French fries, chips, or pomfrites, the fried potato has become one of the few staple dishes you can find in almost every country in the world today. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. Today's review comes from Emma Fern, who left a review over at Apple Podcasts. They write,

The Greatest Podcasts since sliced bread. Gary has created the greatest podcast since sliced bread. As a matter of fact, he has an episode on the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, thank you very much, Em Fern. And indeed, I do have an episode on that. That is Episode 8, so if you haven't listened to it, please go back. And a big thanks to all of you who've left a review, and to all of you who have supported the show over on patreon.com.