AreFrench friesreally French ? It depends on whom you inquire . Some people trace the origins of the deep - fry potato product to Paris in the late 18th 100 . According to legend , street vender at the time sold crispy white potato spears to passersby on the Pont Neuf — the oldest bridge in the urban center . befittingly , these proto - fries were namedpommes Pont - Neuf .
spread that parentage story would be take sacrilegious in Belgium , though . There , the innovation of fries is attributed to the city of Namur . As the story goes , the river Meuse froze over in the winter of 1680 , preventing residents from catching and frying the small Pisces the Fishes they usuallyate with their meals . In an exalt move , they cut potatoes into theshape of fishand fried those instead . Thus , the Belgian fry was yield — allegedly . This chronicle has some problems , the big of which is that , according to the historic record , potatoes were n’t really a part of 17th century Belgian diets . That means if fries were manufacture in Belgium , it belike did n’t happen in 1680 .
Whichever version of effect you believe , it ’s dependable to say that French - verbalize nation played an important role in the history of deep-fried potatoes . But when did murphy tot enroll the par ? And why did the opulence jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. sell sterling silver spud chip waiter ?
The Potato: From Pariah to “Potatroit”
The nascency of French fries has gifted us with a whole form of fried potato dish , from quick food for thought to the deep-freeze gangway . But before processed potatoes became a standard side in many cuisines , some mass did n’t even consider them edible .
When Spanish explorers spell tater from South America to Europe in the 16th C , they were met with a hefty dose of incredulity . It was a French regular army druggist name Antoine - Augustin Parmentier who play potatoes to the fore of French culinary art . Parmentier pulled a variety of stunts to accomplish this , such as hosting extravagant spud - themed dinner , meals that boast up to 20 course of Solanum tuberosum served different way . node are thought to have includedBenjamin FranklinandThomas Jefferson .
Parmentier ’s feasts may have even inspired Jefferson to serve fried potatoesat the White Housewhen he was president . His handwritten recipe forpommes de terre frites à cru en petites tranches , or “ spud deeply - fried while in the buff , in low cuttings , ” send for forpotatoes sliced in roundsinstead of stick . So sort of like chips , only thicker . ( That ’s American “ chips , ” by the way . ) Jefferson’spommesweren’t exactly fries as we know them today , but , he ’s still often credit with introducing the food to America .
In any showcase , it took some time for them to take off . There are19th - century recipesfor “ French fried potatoes , ” but the first French chips were in theearly 20th century . The spheric war provided an improbable extrusion to the American appetency for tike . During World War I , the Potatriots(seriously ) banded together to increase potato consumption , noting thatthe average American deplete 2.3 quart of potatoes a week , while the average German was eating 16 quarts . As one impassioned bill proposed , “ We can wash up them at their own food — which really is n’t theirs ; it ’s a aboriginal American harvest . Eat potatoes alternatively of bread . crusade the enemy with potatoes . ”
Just after the state of war finish , a newspapertold the storyof an innovative home cook who , in light of wartime fat restrictions , had come up with a agency to preserve grease by making “ American ” baked potato — what we today might jazz as oven fries . And when you face atsuggestionsfor feeding American troops during World War I from a manual of arms for army cook , French deep-fried potatoes are noted for being cheap and pop with troops . Sometimes they wereeven pairedwith another cheap and nourishing bag — hamburger steak .
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Burgers and Fries: A Delicious Match Made in Heaven
Today , it ’s hard to find a burger place that does n’t have fries on the card . Burgers and Fry are an iconic culinary couple , and their ubiquity as a pair can be traced back to the stemma of fast food . WhenWhite Castleofficially opened in Wichita , Kansas , in 1921 , it laid the blueprint , in many ways , forfuture fast food chains .
Again , it was wartime that provided some improbable culinary inspiration . Meat shortagesduring World War II pull White Castle to expand its offerings beyond its iconic sliders . They needed a side dish that was sleazy , filling , and made from ingredients that could be stash away for long geological period of sentence . The white potato French shaver fit the bank note . And while nestling were easy to pump out of fast food restaurants , they were harder to make at base . After all , not everyone wants a deep fryer in their kitchen .
All this to say that fresh , hot fries were something special to the fair customer . The menu item was such a hit that fries are now a staple at most every loyal intellectual nourishment mountain range that serves beefburger .
Fries vs. Chips
In England , fried fish is often paired with Roger Eliot Fry , orchips(as they ’re shout out across the pond ) . The first chip shops sell Pisces and chips together began popping up in the countryin the 1860s . During the 1870s , innovations in fishing and refrigeration made the dish even cheaper for shops to make . Pisces and chips became a go - to meal for the body politic ’s work class .
In the United States , bit are tater that have been sliced into very flimsy round and fry until crispy . According to the most illustrious story about their ancestry , the first chips started as an order of magnitude of thick , more fry - similar potatoes . Legend has it that railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt ordered fried white potato vine at a Saratoga Springs restaurant in 1853 and sent them back when they were cut too thick for his liking . The person responsible for the order was noted Black and Native American chefGeorge Crum , who ’s commend as one of the first celebrity chefs in American history . irk by the postulation , Crum supposedly sliced the next slew of spud paper - fragile and fried them to a chip . Vanderbilt loved the looker , and Crum ’s act of potato pettiness backfire .
While the story is regarded as a myth by most food historians , potato chipswerepopularized in Saratoga Springs , New York . They were known as Saratoga chips in the mid-19th C and they were considered a kickshaw . Chips were help in o.k. hotels and opulence sail liners , and Tiffany even sold sterling silver cow chip servers to families lucky enough to be eat them at home .
Hashbrowns, Tater Tots, and Beyond
Another form of electrocute potatoes that issue in the 19th C is hashbrowns . The term , at least , can be trace back to American solid food author Maria Parloa . In the later 1800s , she cite hash browned potatoes , or potato that have literally beenhashedup , as in chopped and brown or fried .
Elsewhere in the world , processed white potato are shaped and fry into white potato pancakes . Unlike hashbrowns , potato griddlecake are usually held together with some kind of binding federal agent like egg , flour , or matzo repast . Examples of potato griddlecake include Irish boxties and Judaic latkes . Swiss rösti may be the potato pancake most exchangeable to hashbrowns , as it ’s made from white potato vine with mostly limited additional ingredients .
One of the most recent entries to the deep-fried potato pantheon is the tater bambino . French tike are directly responsible for the innovation of this crispy contraption solid food . In 1952 , brothers F. Nephi and Golden Grigg founded the Ore - Ida rooted food processing company in Ontario , Oregon . In term of French tike story , they started out as a direction to habituate up the potato fight that were forget at the remnant of the daylight . They make up one’s mind to hack up the leftover piece , season them , and regulate them into bite - sized shot . Aresearch committeeeventually dub the producttater totsafter consulting a synonym finder .
The name is still trademark by Ore - Ida today , which has led to somecreative alternativesfrom contender . In deep freezer section around the public , you may find the point marketed as hasheesh bites , potato pommy - pommy , spud puppies , oven crunchies , and tasti spud . But no matter what they ’re called or what descriptor they take , the creation will always have an appetence for crispy , crunchy tater .
This story was adapted from an instalment of Food story on YouTube . A edition of this article was originally published in 2022 and has been updated for 2024 .
