The UK’s a modern country, we can get peanut butter with or without lumps, I’ll have you know!
From comparison to import US peanut butter, UK stuff isn’t as sweet in general, but I prefer it savoury, and tend to stick to the varieties I like, so maybe that’s just a biased sample.
Chip butties can be served with ketchup, brown sauce (HP or similar, known by this appetising name) or possibly barbecue sauce or mayo. Fry sauce isn’t really a thing here. The bread is usually buttered, and vinegar may be added to the chips, though this is not universal.
We have all those in the USA, too. Most people just don’t bother distinguishing when they’re talking about them, but certainly restaurants or the frozen packages will distinguish if they’re not the most common kind. Here is how yours translate in the USA:
Chips of course
Fries, or sometimes steak fries (steak fries are usually much wider and a bit thicker than common American fries)
Crinkle cut fries
It sounds like you’re describing potato skins with toppings, but it could also be steak fries. Skins are partially hollowed potato pieces (like halves or quarters) with skin that are then topped with all sorts of things.
Fries
Waffle fries (e.g., the kind Chick Fil-A serves)
Curly fries (e.g. from Arby’s)
Tator tots are also very popular in the USA (at least in my house), but aren’t truly fries. They’re more like shaped hash browns.
Also in the U.S… If someone said “shoestring fries,” we wouldn’t expect to see McDonald’s-style fries. Those are just fries—thin cut, but still within the just plain old fries category.
If I heard something described as shoestring fries, I would expect them not only to be very thin, but also curled, that is, not generally straight, like McDonald’s fries.
It’s possible to buy peanut butter with sugar added in both the US and the UK. I tried the sweet version a couple of times many years ago but didn’t care for it so I wouldn’t buy it now. But obviously some people do like that kind of PB on both sides of the Atlantic. And you can have smooth or chunky versions of PB in both countries.
That’s fine, but to me and many other Americans, “shoestring fries” is just thin cut fries. Like see upper left here. Yours can also be called that, or petite-cut fries or potato shoestrings,
:shrug: They are known as such among many folks, in my experience. Just google “shoestring fries” and look at the images. There may (most likely are) regional differences. I am familiar with the longer type that is pretty much just as thin. Look at the photo here, for example, for what a diner in Sag Harbor, NY, calls “shoestring fries.” Those look like McDonald’s-sized fries to me.
I would not call what McD’s serves “shoestring” under any circumstances. Shoestring fries are even thinner, you could easily get a couple, maybe more, of them out of a single McD fry.
And what KFC serves, not even close. Those are potato wedges (that’s even what they call them), they must serve something else entirely in foreignville, because you’d have to be blind to call those things shoestring.
