# French (?) Fries
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 25, 2000, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776 "2000-02-25T21:06:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sogno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sogno)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/1 "2000-02-25T21:06:00Z")
I live in Belgium, the country which is (in Europe) well known as THE country for ‘French fries’ Now, I’ve been wondering about this term practically all my life. We are brought up to believe that ‘French fries’ are about the only thing a Belgian can be proud of. French people tend to laugh ( and admit at the same time) that we invented them, and they named it…Who’s right and why do you english-speaking people call them ‘French fries’. There is an american legend stating that some american cook would have invented them, by accident. Please Cecil, look into it.
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/2 "2000-02-25T21:14:00Z")
Here’s what I’ve heard:
Food that is cut into strips is said to be “Frenched.” Since French fries are strips of potato that have been fried, they became known as French fried potatoes, or French fries.
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### Author:  [@Diver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diver)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/3 "2000-02-25T21:20:00Z")
Sogno said:
There is an american legend stating that some american cook would have invented them, by accident
I think that might be potato chips that the legend refers to. The guy was a chef at a resort/hotel in maybe NY state?
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### Author:  [@Ursa\_Major](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ursa_Major)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/4 "2000-02-25T21:30:00Z")
I think it’s for the same reason Americans call Brazilians “Hispanics”. We tend to lump similar cultures/languages together and call them by the most prominant label. Besides, “Flem Fries” is a little off-putting.
BTW- Wasn’t an American woman by the name of Laura Scutter (Scudder?) the inventor of the potato chip?
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### Author:  [@mazirian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazirian)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/5 "2000-02-25T21:59:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by Ursa Major:
> BTW- Wasn’t an American woman by the name of Laura Scutter (Scudder?) the inventor of the potato chip?
Nope, it was George Crum, 1853 in Saratoga Springs, NY (_Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things_).
1. time I’ve anwered this one…
* * *
_For once you must try to face the facts: Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts._
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### Author:  [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/6 "2000-02-25T22:00:00Z")
The story I heard for potato chips (I don’t know the specific names, and it may be a UL), is that at a certain restaurant, a certain customer always insisted on having his potatoes thinly sliced. The chef was eventually annoyed by this, so s/he once decided to slice the potatoes absurdly thin, hoping to piss the customer off. Turns out the customer loved them, and thus were potato chips born.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/7 "2000-02-25T22:06:00Z")
Just be thankful that we give you credit for Belgian waffles and Brussels sprouts!
😉
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### Author:  [@mazirian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazirian)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2000, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/8 "2000-02-25T22:22:00Z")
From [Snax Trax Through Time](http://www.snax.com/history/history1.html)(Heh!):
> [@](#):
>
> 1853
>
> What began as a joke…
> Potato chips were created when railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was vacationing at the fashionable Saratoga Springs resort in New York. As he’s dining one evening, the Commodore sends his fried potatoes back to the kitchen, complaining they’re “too thick.”
> George Crum, the cook on duty, decides to have some fun with the Commodore. So Crum slices up a new batch of potatoes paper-thin, tosses them into boiling oil, fries them to a crisp and salts them. What’s intended as a jokes turns into an instant hit. The Commodore and his friends love the “crunch potato slices.” These “Saratoga Chips” become a fad with the resort’s socialite patrons, and the recipe soon spreads to other restaurants along the East Coast.
Panati’s book gives basically the same story, though he doesn’t mention the customer’s name.
And no, I’m not obsessed with this…
🙂
* * *
_For once you must try to face the facts: Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts._
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### Author:  [@Frankie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankie)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/9 "2000-02-26T00:50:00Z")
I heard that american GI’s got them in Paris during WWI? or WWII…and loved them. Brought the idea back to the states and the french fry was born.
But then again I was under the impression that they weren’t called french fries in Europe? OH well you live you learn!
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-Frankie
I’m a wholesale dealin papa, but I retail on the side.-Brownie McGhee
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### Author:  [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/10 "2000-02-26T01:03:00Z")
I can’t offer a cite on this, but I remember reading that French Fries were first introduced to the US at a state dinner hosted by then-president Thomas Jefferson. Always a trendsetter.
Oh and the French term for them is “Pommes Frites”(sp?). Don’t know what they call them anywhere else.
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### Author:  [@siva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/siva)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/11 "2000-02-26T03:36:00Z")
Don’t the Brits call “french fries” chips?
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### Author:  [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/12 "2000-02-26T03:59:00Z")
Saltire has it right.
Thomas Jefferson sampled the dish, for the first time, while staying in France and assumed they were French in origin.
Upon returning to the U.S./colonies/whatever he introduced them as “French Fried Potatoes”.
They became immediately popular and soon the “potatoes” part was dropped and they quickly became known as “French Frieds” and then “French Fries”.
Several billion McDonald customers followed and the name has stuck.
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/13 "2000-02-26T05:27:00Z")
Yep. French. After all, Belgium is part of France, isn’t it? 😃😃 :D. And they **are** delicious dipped, piping hot, into good mayonaise (aioli?).
Peace,
mangeorge (Ducking for cover)
* * *
I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/14 "2000-02-26T05:30:00Z")
In the UK, the general practice is that what the US calls potato chips, the Brits call potato crisps, and what the US calls french fries, the Brits call chips.
Where I grew up in NZ, both were called chips.
* * *
**-PIGEONMAN-**
[The Legend Of PigeonMan](http://www.hotkey.net.au/~guanolad/pigeonman/)
- **Shadow of the Pigeon** -
Weirdo of the Night
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/15 "2000-02-26T05:48:00Z")
A site, dedicated to fries. [http://www.tx7.com/fries/](http://www.tx7.com/fries/)
Personally, I prefer the “double cook” method.
Peace,
mangeorge
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### Author:  [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/16 "2000-02-26T06:09:00Z")
Ursa Major:
> [@](#):
>
> I think it’s for the same reason Americans call Brazilians “Hispanics”. We tend to lump similar cultures/languages together and call them by the most prominant label.
My dictionary (1982) says ‘Hispanics’ are from Spain, Portugal or Latin America. When I was in grade school (1936-41), I was under the impression that the term referred only to the more or less modern Spanish and Portuguese (which were once all “Spanish”, before some sort of split in the Church, I believe).
As to the OP, maybe the French taste better fried than the Belgians do.
Ray (Hispanic, historic and his mnemonic)
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### Author:  [@Court\_Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Court_Jester)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/17 "2000-02-26T06:22:00Z")
From Miriam Webster online:
His_pan_ic (adjective)
[Latin hispanicus, from Hispania Iberian Peninsula, Spain]
First appeared circa 1889
: of, relating to, or being a person of Latin American descent living in the U.S.; especially : one of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin
from Cambridge Dictionary online:
Hispanic adjective, noun: connected with a person who lives in the US but who originally came from or whose family came from Spanish-speaking Latin America
## If you look at the Latin root, one could certainly see that Portugal could be included, but it seems to have drifted away from that recently.
A hat with bells on is not funny, it is the jester underneath.
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/18 "2000-02-26T07:26:00Z")
## Main Entry: Por·tu·guese Pronunciation: 'pOr-ch&-"gEz, ‘por-, -"gEs; "pOr-ch&-’, "por- Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural Portuguese Etymology: Portuguese português, adjective & noun, from Portugal Date: 1534 1 a : a native or inhabitant of Portugal b : one who is of Portuguese descent 2 : the Romance language of Portugal and Brazil
I’ve always thought of Portuguese as a separate language from Spanish, and the above seems to confirm that. Does anybody know the SD? Are they simply related, like Spanish and Italian are?
Would you like fries with that, sir? 🙂
Peace,
mangeorge
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### Author:  [@Jorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jorge)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/19 "2000-02-26T09:38:00Z")
Yup, different related languages, as are Provencal, Catalan, etc…
The business about Portuguese not being “Hispanic” often is related to equal opportunity issues, i.e. just “which Hispanics” may get preferential treatment in hiring, college admissions, etc… As in a long-ago GD thread - Ursa might remember - the argument sometimes is extended to exclude Hispanics of Spanish descent !? (IIRC, there was a flap with an LA fire department official over that.)
BTW, Sogno, the Belgian french fries ? The best were always fried in _horse fat_. They still do that ?
* * *
_O le mea a tamaali’i fa’asala, a o le mea a tufanua fa’alumaina._
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### Author:  [@Sogno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sogno)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2000, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-fries/7776/20 "2000-02-27T02:32:00Z")
how did this thing evolve from french fries to hispanics? it was the first time i posted a question on here, never expected so much reaction in so little time…but thanx all of u…
french fries in:
DUTCH = frieten
FRENCH = pommes frites
GERMAN = fritten
UK english = chips (crisps)
and Belgium actually is a part of France, and they’re part of America themselves…oh, u didnt know? yes the US owns everything.
🙂
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