Are French fries really French? It depends on who you ask. Some people trace the origins
of the deep-fried potato product to Paris in the late 18th century. According to legend,
street vendors at the time sold crispy potato spears to passersby on the Pont Neuf—the
oldest bridge in the city. Appropriately, these proto-fries were named pomme Pont-Neuf.
Spreading that origin story would be considered blasphemous in Belgium, though. There, the
invention 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
fish they ate with their meals. In an inspired move, they cut potatoes into the shape of
fish and fried those instead. Thus, the Belgian fry was born—allegedly. This account has
some problems, the biggest of which is that—according to the historical record—potatoes weren’t
really a part of 17th-century Belgian diets. That means if fries were invented in Belgium,
it likely didn’t happen in 1680.
Whichever version of events you believe, it’s safe to say that French-speaking countries
played an important role in the history of fried potatoes. But when did tater tots enter
the equation? And why did the luxury jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. sell sterling silver potato
chip servers? Let's get an order of fun fried potato facts for the table. No, I don’t
want my own order, because then you're gonna get hungry and reach over and take some of mine. So. For the table.
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd. Welcome to Food History. The birth of French fries has gifted us with
a whole class of fried potato dishes, from fast food to the freezer aisle. But before
processed potatoes became a standard side in many cuisines, some people didn’t even
consider them edible.
As I covered in the first-ever episode of Food History on mashed potatoes, when Spanish
explorers imported potatoes from South America to Europe in the 16th century they were met
with a healthy dose of skepticism. A French army pharmacist named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier
was largely responsible for bringing potatoes to the fore of French cuisine. Parmentier
pulled a variety of stunts to accomplish this, such as hosting extravagant spud-themed dinners.
These meals featured up to 20 courses of potatoes served different ways, and guests are thought
to have included Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Parmentier’s feasts may have
even inspired Jefferson to serve fried potatoes at the White House when he was president.
His handwritten recipe for pommes de terre frites à cru en petites tranches, or “potatoes
deep-fried while raw, in small cuttings,” called for potatoes sliced in rounds instead
of sticks. So kinda like chips, only thicker. That’s American “chips,” by the way.
Anyway, Jefferson’s pommes weren’t exactly fries as we know them today, but, he’s still
often credited with introducing the food to America.
In any case, it took some time for them to take off. There are 19th-century recipes for
‘French fried potatoes,’ and by the early 20th century people were calling them French
Fries. But a global war provided an unlikely bump to the American appetite for fries. During
World War I—and I swear I am not making this up—the Potatriots banded together to
increase our potato consumption, noting that the average American consumed 2.3 quarts of
potatoes a week, while the average German was eating 16 quarts. As one impassioned account
proposed, “We can beat them at their own food—which really isn’t theirs; it’s
a native American crop. Eat potatoes instead of bread. Fight the enemy with potatoes.”
Imagine the lives that could’ve been saved if the whole world had embraced this military
strategy.
Just after the war ended, a newspaper told the story of an innovative home cook who,
in light of wartime fat restrictions, had come up with a way to preserve grease by making
“American” baked potatoes—what we today might know as oven fries. And when you look
at suggestions for feeding American troops during World War One from a manual for army
cooks, french fried potatoes are noted for being cheap and popular with troops. Sometimes
they were even paired with another cheap and nourishing dish—hamburger steak.
Today, it’s hard to find a burger place that doesn’t have fries on the menu. Burgers
and fries are an iconic culinary couple, and their ubiquity as a pair can be traced back
to the origins of fast food. When White Castle officially opened in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921,
it laid the blueprint, in many ways, for future fast food chains.
Again, it was wartime that provided some unlikely culinary inspiration. Meat shortages during
World War II forced White Castle to expand its offerings beyond its iconic sliders. They
needed a side dish that was cheap, filling, and made from ingredients that could be stored
for long periods of time. The potato French fry fit the bill. And while fries were easy
to pump out of fast food restaurants, they were harder to make at home. After all, not
everyone wants a deep fryer in their kitchen. Even if they do, sometimes their roommate
won’t let them get one, no matter how many times they ask nicely. Brian. I’m just kidding.
There’s no one back there. I am...very alone.
All this to say that fresh, hot fries were something special to the average customer.
The menu item was such a hit that fries are now a staple at every fast food chain that
serves burgers.
In England, fried fish is often paired with fries, or chips as they’re called across
the pond. The first chip shops selling fish and chips together began popping up in the
country in the 1860s. During the 1870s, innovations in fishing and refrigeration made the dish
even cheaper for shops to produce. Fish and chips became a go-to meal for the country’s
working class.
In the United States, chips are potatoes that have been sliced into very thin rounds and
fried until crispy. According to the most famous story about their origin, the first
chips started as an order of thicker, more fry-like potatoes. Legend has it that railroad
magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt ordered fried potatoes 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 famous Black and Native American chef George Crum, who’s remembered
as one of the first celebrity chefs in American history. Irked by the request, Crum supposedly
sliced the next batch of potatoes paper-thin and fried them to a crisp. Vanderbilt loved
the dish, and Crum’s act of potato pettiness backfired.
While the story is regarded as a myth by food historians, potato chips were popularized
in Saratoga Springs, New York. They were known as Saratoga chips in the mid-19th century
and they were considered a delicacy. Chips were served in fine hotels and luxury cruise
liners, and Tiffany even sold sterling silver chip servers to families eating them at home.
Another form of fried potatoes that emerged in the 19th century are hashbrowns. The term,
at least, can be traced back to American food writer Maria Parloa. In the late 1800s she
mentioned hashed browned potatoes, or potatoes that have literally been hashed up, as in
chopped, and browned, or fried. Elsewhere in the world, processed potatoes are shaped
and fried into potato pancakes. Unlike hashbrowns, potato pancakes are usually held together
with some sort of binding agent like eggs, flour, or matzo meal. Examples of potato pancakes
include Irish boxties and Jewish latkes. Swiss rösti may be the potato pancake most similar
to hashbrowns, as it’s made from potatoes with generally limited additional ingredients.
One of the most recent entries to the fried potato pantheon is the tater tot. French fries
are directly responsible for the invention of this crispy convenience food. In 1952,
brothers F. Nephi and Golden Grigg founded the Ore-Ida frozen food processing company
in Ontario, Oregon. They started out making French fries, and they were looking for a
way to use up the potato scraps they were left with at the end of the day. They decided
to chop up the leftover bits, season them, and shape them into bite-sized pellets. A
research committee eventually dubbed the product tater tots after consulting a thesaurus.
The name is still trademarked by Ore-Ida today, which has led to some creative alternatives
from competitors. In freezer sections around the world, you can find the item marketed
as hash bites, potato pom-poms, spud puppies, oven crunchies, and tasti taters. But no matter
what they’re called or what form they take, the world will always have an appetite for
crispy, crunchy potatoes.
Because I enjoy watching comment sections cannibalize themselves let me ask you this
question as we wrap up today, which do you prefer? Tots? Or Fries? Only one can win.
And as always, if you have a question about the history of food, drop it in the comments
below and we’ll try to answer it in an upcoming episode. I mean, we’ll try. There’s a
lot of history out there. Thanks for watching.