Would you like fries with that?

The mighty potato - packed with oodles of vitamins and nutrition, it's no wonder that the U.S. Department of Agriculture classified it as a vegetable (I'm sure it had nothing to do with politics). This unassuming root grows in nearly any climate worldwide, and may very well be the solution to the world's growing hunger problems. It has certainly been solving my own personal hunger problems for most of my life. And while I enjoy the potato in all it's forms, and would love nothing more than to ponder what caused ancient Man to dig the poisonous potato plant out of the ground and try noshing on it's root system (the short answer: desperate, agonizing starvation), my post today will only focus on what happens to a potato after one chops it into thin strips and boils it in sea of molten oil. I am speaking, of course, about french fries.

The french fry is served at nearly every fast food restaurant in the United States. It has even been spotted in non-fry locales (such as Taco Bell and KFC), under the super secret pseudonym of "potato wedge". There is no denying that without the french fry, fast food wouldn't be the incredibly popular foodstuff that it is.

The age old question "What do they call the french fry in France" is easily answered, thanks to the Internet. Back in my days *before* the Internet (yes, younglings... such a dark age existed), we thought that the French had invented the french fry, but oddly referred to their fries as "English fries", which we thought was quite funny. But, as it turns out, the French speak some sort of strange foreign language, and instead refer to their deep-fried potatoes as "Pomme Frites", which translates roughly into... erm... deep-fried potatoes. Their opinions about their cleverly named dish don't include the English at all, but instead seem to revolve around a nearby country known as Belgium, which they hail as the actual origin of the french fry.

The English have solved the regional fried-potato naming issue altogether, by dubbing their version of french fries as "chips". And while that may confuse the heck out of us Americans, it seems to keep them out of the fray, and seems to put the final nail in the coffin of the "English Fries" myth of my youth. Ah well.

Even though conclusive evidence doesn't exist to substantiate Belgium as the true originator of the fry, most of Europe including the Belgians themselves will tell you that it is (and Belgians also take the award for biggest European consumer of the french fry - that's national pride in action!) One exception to the rule is Spain, which insists that *they* actually created the delicious side dish more than a century before it first appeared in Belgium. Well, can you blame them for wanting to take credit for such greatness? Truth be told, we consumers don't truly know (or honestly care) where the fry really got its start. We are just damned happy it is here.