I’m watching Animal Crackers (1930), and Chico throws out a line about steak and French fried potatoes. ISTR hearing and reading other mentions of the pairing in movies and books written in the '40s and '50s. By the time I came along, the common side to steak was a baked potato.
Were the French fried potatoes just French fries (or ‘steak fries’)?
When did French fried potatoes lose their position to the baked potato?
I don’t have any answers for you, just another observation: I used to read Perry Mason novels, and at least the earlier ones, the ones written during the Depression, would occasionally have someone eating a restaurant meal of steak and fried potatoes. Air conditioning wasn’t prevalent during this time, so it would probably be a little cooler to fry potatoes than bake them, and keep them warm in a warming oven.
Sometimes I make fries with a steak instead of a baked potato because I don’t want to heat up the whole kitchen to bake the taters.
Around here, it’s still an option at most steak places although in a variation known steak fries, the bigger ones that actually look like they came from a potato. This occurs even at places that otherwise don’t let you switch out your sides.
If it’s popular enough to still be an option now, I think it’s likely they were even more popular in the past, given your quote at least.
I didn’t know baked potatoes were supposed to be the default these days. Around here I’d say fries (generally thick ones) are most commonly served with steak in restaurants, and at home I eat my steak with baked potatoes, fries, mashed potatoes or hash browns, depending on my mood; I actually tend to prefer the latter two, since they’re best at soaking up the juices from the meat.
There was a time when you would go to a restaurant that specialized in steak, a Steak and Brew type, and the standard meal would be steak and baked potatoes.
My WAG is that these became common after french fries started to be associated with fast food. McDonald’s pushed its fries heavily starting in the 50s. Baked potatoes took much longer to cook in those pre-microwave days and so were a fancier food. And this saved the restaurant from having to deal with a deep fryer and oil.
The original dialog, BTW, is a pun. The scene is the bridge game. Mrs. Rittenhouse says “Oh, we just play for small stakes.” Ravelli (Chico) replies “And french fried potatoes?”
I can’t see changing that to “And baked potatoes?” It doesn’t scan as well and isn’t as funny.
French fried potatoes would be common enough as a side dish to get away with this, because every French restaurant would serve steak frites, which is the French way of serving steak and french fries, and the New York audience would certainly be familiar with that dish. (I.e., that dialog was in the original play.)
If you want to argue that the rest of the country wouldn’t be familiar with French dishes you’d probably be right. But there are two counterarguments to that. One is that steak and french fries probably would be served at most ordinary restaurants anyway. The second is that there are a million lines aimed at the New York audience in the original play that weren’t changed in the film.
Steak with pomme frites(french fries, steak fries) has been around since the late 1600’s.
Pepper steak and frites was my absolute favorite dish in Brussels. Of course, everything in Brussels comes with frites.
Yes, but the actual joke wasn’t important to the OP. 
I think nearly everyone who saw the film would get the jokes, even if they’re New York-centric. I did have to look up ‘schnorrer’ in the Captain Spaulding song though.
Yeah, but it was worth pointing out to fellow Marxists. 
The most famous example is the “Strange Interlude” takeoff on Eugene O’Neill. The New York run of the play preceded Animal Crackers, so audiences would have been familiar with an actor stepping out of place and doing a commentary into space. But the film version of the play didn’t come out until after the Animal Crackers film version. I think the vast majority of audiences wouldn’t even have heard of Strange Interlude, let alone the stage business in it.
We had a thread on some of the other now forgotten references in the script.
Praytell me where you get this information from. :rolleyes:
Until after WWII, many, if not most restaurants served french fried potatoes with steak. This from my reading of newspaper articles/stories.
You might very well be right about fries being associated with fast food, but I would guess that any place that served steak would have fries as an option, for those who wanted them. My grandfather loved potatoes in all forms, and one of his favorite moments was deciding whether to have fries, mashed potatoes, or baked potato with his meal.
“Baked potatoes available after 4 p.m.” was the norm in the dark days before microwave ovens, so if you had steak for lunch it would probably come with fries, mashed potatoes, or rice pilaf.
There’s at least one steakhouse in town that used to offer baked potatoes only after 4 PM, even after the turn of the century. I don’t know if that’s still their policy, as my husband and I quit going after we each got a bad steak on three separate occasions. You know, once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is enemy action sort of thing.
Wasn’t SI famous for being Banned in Boston? That might have been enough to make it well known even if you hadn’t seen it.
Leske’s Steak House Steak Dinner 1953
The picture has a steak and regular fries with it. They are not the giant steak fries, so here’s a picture showing an actual meal.
Johnny L. A., are you trying to drive me to an eating binge? Steak and frech fries, pastrami…your threads are so delicious.
Don’t forget the chicken soup! 
(I’m going to be so sick of chicken soup by the weekend!)
I almost bought a nice rib-eye Friday. The tiny market in this little village gets their meat from Costco, which is always good. But I was planning the soup for Saturday and decided not to. I can’t think of the last time I had a steak! I’m too busy during the week, and I have all of that soup to get through. Next Saturday I’ll try making the pastrami. Might be a while before I get around to having a steak.
EDIT: Oh, yeah… A friend gave me zucchini from her garden. And a recipe. (Sliced zucchini, onions, a little milk, shredded cheese, bake.) I need to cook that soon, too.
Johnny, don’t cook that zucchini! This salad is the nuts.
Michael Symon’s Zucchini Crudo
2 zucchini (about ¾ pound), thinly sliced
2 yellow summer squash (about 1½ pounds), thinly sliced
1 tablespoon plus ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 shallot, finely sliced
Grated zest and juice of 3 lemons, or to taste
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1⁄3 cup slivered or sliced almonds, toasted
1⁄3 cup chopped fresh dill
Combine the zucchini and yellow squash in a colander in the sink and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the salt over it. Toss to coat, and set aside for 10 to 15 minutes, no longer. In a large bowl, combine the garlic and shallot, sprinkle with the remaining ¼ teaspoon salt, and whisk in the lemon zest and juice. Whisk in the olive oil in a steady stream, then the almonds and dill. Taste for seasoning and acidity (it should be nicely acidic). Add the zucchini and squash to the dressing, toss, and serve immediately.
Makes 4 to 6 servings