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Belgium: Why French Fries Aren't French

Some of our readership may remember how, once upon a time -- oh, five or six years ago -- some members of the United States Congress got cranky with the French government, and administered it what somebody apparently considered a stinging rebuke by changing the name of the dish "French fries", in the Congressional cafeterias, to "Freedom Fries".

This kind of thing has happened fairly frequently in recent history -- as for example during World War II, when many foods with German names in the USA had new and more politically correct names slapped on them for the duration. Sauerkraut, for example, became "liberty cabbage", and even the innocent and theoretically all-American hamburger got turned into "victory steak". But this maneuver is at its funniest when there's enough confusion about the origin of the food for the gesture to be meaningless -- in the most recent case, because "French fries" are actually from Belgium.

Unfortunately, in our short-attention-span world, there are too few people who're either familiar with or concerned about the details of such events as World War I. In that war, American and Canadian soldiers assisting in the liberation of Belgium arrived in a French-speaking part of the country and were served extremely tasty fried potatoes, which they promptly started calling "French fries" even though they weren't particularly close to France at the time. By the time anyone noticed the error, it was too late: the name was stuck.

The French were probably as bemused by this as anyone else. France at that time just didn't have the "frying culture". But the Belgians (and the Dutch as well) had it in spades. They have it still. Even the smallest of Belgian villages has a frietkot, a little place to get your fries -- sometimes a shop or little restaurant, but often just a small mobile building or temporary structure of some kind, even a shack. (Please note, however, that some of these "shacks" have WiFi and/or broadband.)

Frietkots naturally sell other things too, such as sausages and burgers and various snacks that you might like, fried or grilled. But the fries (and the many tasty sauces that go with them) are always the star. Every frietkot prides itself on serving the quintessential Belgian frietjes (pronounced "FREET-yes"), cut thin so that they'll achieve the perfect level of crunch, and always fried twice.

Click on "Read more" to find out how they do it...

If you're looking for online sources for sauces for friet / frites, please try this link: Belgian and Dutch Mayonnaise and Friet / Frites Sauces. Also -- are you a Belgian visitor looking for a frituur? Try VindEenFrituur.be.

(And hi there, JustHungry visitors! Make yourselves at home.)

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