Being both a sometime practicer of the culinary arts and a modest french speaker, I thought I had to correct you on one point.
A little elemantary research might yield that the potato in french is the pomme de terre. I learned that in French 101. :rolleyes:
Thus the proper name of the french fry in it’s native tongue, as it were, is the pomme de terre en frite’
It should also have been noted that whatever unknown french chef who first fried the potato in hot oil was borrowing from a portuguese technique.
Except that it isn’t. The French do actually refer to fried potatoes as pommes en frite. But don’t ask me what they call fried apples.
OK to clear this up:
Pomme = Apple
Pomme de terre = potato (lit. Earth Apple)
OK to clear this up:
Pomme = Apple
Pomme de terre = potato (lit. Earth Apple)
Frite = Fried
ergo Pommes Frites = French Fries
I’ve seen it both ways, both in cookbooks and on restaurant menus. Casual observation suggests that plain pommes frites is considerably more common. Just as we say French fries when what we mean is fried Frenched potatoes. See French Fries (another current thread on this topic).
PBear, your link is not on the topic, although there’s a link within that thread that mentions it, but is far from conclusive, offering 3 possible etymologies. Though I think the first two are more likely.