The British call them chips, the Spanish, papas fritas and the French, pommes frites. Here in the USA, we call them French fries (or Freedom fries, if you’re at Geno’s). How, you might ask, did these tasty treats come to accompany our burgers, hide tucked in our gyros and satiate our drunken cravings? Well, no one’s quite sure, exactly, but the consensus is that the fry was born in Belgium. Some sources attribute the first fry to poor Belgians in the Namur province in the late 1600s, who, when fish was unavailable, would fry potatoes in the shape of their beloved poissons. Others say the fry was born of an accident in Liege, Belgium around 1820, when a stray potato strip found its way into a pot of boiling fat. While the Belgians can argue about the precise location of the fry’s birth, one thing is for certain: Belgium propelled the delightful fry to fame. In fact, in Belgium today, fry stands (called frietkot) serve up the starchy delights on every corner, typically with a drizzle of mayonnaise; there is a national association of fry-stand owners and even a fry museum in Bruges. But if Belgium is responsible for the fry, why on earth is it called a French fry? Well, apparently we Americans are partly to blame for that, despite our later rejection of the term. While traipsing through western Belgium during World War I, American, British and Canadian troops were served the dish by the proud locals, and, as the local language was French, the troops returned home singing the praises of the “French fry.” Oops. While Americans have certainly put their own spin on the dish — slathering it with ketchup and serving it alongside quarter-pounders — the fry is most definitely a European creation.

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