Why do you people in America call fries French fries ?!
In England they call them Chips, and the work for chips is Crisps.
Answers: Fries where invented in Belgium, they are not french.
In England they call them Chips, and the work for chips is Crisps.
French fries (North America; sometimes also uncapitalized as "french fries"[1] or simply "fries"[2]), or chips (United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, and most Commonwealth nations), are pieces of potato that have been Batoned and deep-fried.
In areas where "chips" is the common term, "French fries" usually refers to the thinner variant found in US-influenced fast food restaurants, or to the even thinner "shoestring potatoes". In North America "chips" generally means potato chips (called "crisps" in the UK and Ireland), which are deep-fried very thin slices of potato that are usually served at room temperature. In Australia "chips" refers to any form of fried potato. A more recent hybrid of thicker cross-cut splicings, and generally eaten hot, is "waffle-cut potatoes" (not to be confused with potato waffles made from reconstituted potato).
[edit] Culinary origin of the term
The straightforward explanation of the term is that it means potatoes fried in the French sense of the verb "to fry", which can mean either sautéing or deep-fat frying, while its French origin, frire, unambiguously means deep-frying : frites being its past participle used with a plural feminine substantive, as in pommes de terre frites ("deep-fried potatoes").[1][2] Thomas Jefferson, famous for serving French dishes, wrote exactly the latter French expression.[1][3] In the early 20th century, the term "French fried" was being used for foods such as onion rings or chicken, apart from potatoes.[4][5]
The verb "to french", though not attested until after "French fried potatoes" had appeared[citation needed], can refer to "julienning" of vegetables as is acknowledged by some dictionaries[6] while others only refer to trimming the meat off the shanks of chops.[7] In the UK "French-trimmed" lamb chops (particularly for serving as a 'rack of lamb') have the majority of the fat removed together with a small piece of fatty meat from between the ends of the chop bones, leaving mainly only the meat forming the "eye" of the chop attached.
Belgium
Belgians claim that "French" fries are in fact Belgian, but definitive evidence for the origin has not been presented. Belgian historian Jo Gerard recounts that potatoes were already fried in 1680 in the Spanish Netherlands, in the area of "the Meuse valley between Dinant and Liège, Belgium. The poor inhabitants of this region allegedly had the custom of accompanying their meals with small fried fish, but when the river was frozen and they were unable to fish, they cut potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil to accompany their meals."[8][9][10]
The Dutch concur with a Southern Netherlandish or Belgian origin when referring to Vlaamse frieten ('Flemish fries'). In 1857, the newspaper Courrier de Verviers devotes an article to Fritz (assumed pun with 'frites'), a Belgian entrepreneur selling French fries at fairs, calling them "le roi des pommes de terre frites". In 1862, a stall selling French fried potatoes (see frietkot) called "Max en Fritz" was established near Het Steen in Antwerp.[11][9]
A Belgian legend claims that the term "French" was introduced when British or American soldiers arrived in Belgium during World War I, and consequently tasted Belgian fries. They supposedly called them "French", as it was the official language of the Belgian Army at that time.[9] But the term "French fried potatoes" had been in use in America long before the Great War.
Whether or not Belgians invented them, "frites" "quickly became the national snack and a substantial part of both national dishes — making the Belgians their largest per capita consumers,[citation needed] and to Europe, their "symbolic" creators.
France
Many Americans attribute the dish to France — although in France they are often thought of as Belgian — and offer as evidence a notation by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. "Pommes de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches" ("Potatoes deep-fried while raw, in small cuttings") are noted in a manuscript in Thomas Jefferson's hand (circa 1801-1809) and the recipe almost certainly comes from his French chef, Honoré Julien.[1] It is worth noting, though, that France had recently annexed what is now Belgium, and would retain control over it until the Congress of Vienna of 1815 brought it under Dutch control.[12] In addition, from 1813[13] on, recipes for what can be described as French fries, occur in popular American cookbooks. By the late 1850s, one of these mentions the term "French fried potatoes."[14]
Recipes for fried potatoes (not clearly specified how) in French cookbooks date back at least to Menon's Les soupers de la cour (1755). It is true that eating potatoes was promoted in France by Parmentier, but he did not mention fried potatoes in particular. And the name of the dish in languages other than English does not refer to France; in French, they are simply called "pommes de terres frites" or, more commonly, simply "pommes frites" or 'frites'
cuz in americn chips are fried sliced potaoes
To each his own.
Just 'cause...
"French" refers not to the country but to the cutting technique- known here as 'frenching,' or cutting into strips. Originally, it's possible that it referred to the frying technique as well. You can "french fry" onions or chicken, according to some.
Also, even though they were actually invented in Belgium, it's common belief that they were invented in France. So it's a bit of a vicious circle.
well for use that just what they been called by us over 100 maybe 200 years what else should we call them there not chips chips are round so that's not good , we have to do a lot of searching our history to see who even invented the fries and why they brought them over to th usa . many of our words have came down from our ancestry it how we was thought as a child has they passed them down from family to family.