The fries

Hello everyone!

Let’s talk about food, something that I think everybody likes (when it’s not food you find awful :p). I’m going to tell you about one of my favorite kind of meals/snack: The (French) fries. It’s typical Belgian food.

History of the fries

It all began around the year 1680. The people of “Namen”, “Ardennen” and “Dinant” had the habit to fish in the Maas, which is a river that goes through the Netherlands, Belgium and France. The smallest fish were cooked in oil. When it was freezing or too dangerous to go fishing they would cut potatoes in shapes of small fish and cook those in oil instead.

The name “French fries” may make you think it’s food from France. The reason for that name could have two possibilities. In English you have the verb “to French” which means “Cutting”. The Americans translated it to “French fries” because the people of the region spoke French.

Around 1900 Fries were known in whole Belgium and it was time to let Netherland know about them too. In 1905 was the first time that there were fries in Netherland, on the faire of Bergen at Zoom. The success of the fries traveled with the faire through whole the land and so it made it became well known there too. While in North-Netherland and Utrecht they call them “Vlaamse friet” (Friet is Dutch for Fries) in the rest of Netherland do they give it, to us Belgians odd, name “Patat” (Basically you could translate it as “Potatoes”).

Frituren

In Belgium you got many ‘Frituren’. It’s a place where you can go to eat fries and hamburgers or other kind of meat and fish. It’s not a restaurant, however. You could compare it with a McDonalds, though it is healthier, smaller, and each “Frituur” works for its own, unlike McDonalds, which is a company.

How are they made?

It is rather easy to make them. For four persons you’ll need around 2kg potatoes. You first cut them in long pieces. You can choose if you want them thick or thin. Belgian fries are 1 to 6 cm long and 1 cm thick. Once they are cut you put them in fryer, with oil that’s on 150 °C. Then you bake the fries for the first time. It takes about 7 to 8 minutes, when they make a “shshshshshs” sound it means you’ve got to pull them out right away. You can do this a long time before baking them for the second time, because when they’re cooled off they’ll be crispier. Baking the first time is crucial for a good result. Then you do a second time, this you do just before you serve them, on 190 °C for a minute. After this you can serve the fries, together with the rest you’ve made for dinner!

Tips for when baking:

1. Never put too many fries in the fryer. It’s better to do small bits at a time.

2. Especially for the second baking, stay with the fries, or else they might end up uneatable.

3. When you’ve cut the potatoes you can keep them in water, that way they won’t get bad before you start baking them.