This reminds me of when americans renamed French fries “Freedom Fries.”
This level of pettiness is something I am truly proud of, and love to see. When Canada floated that idea of welcoming in California, Oregon and Washington state as territories, my first thought was “I would move there so fucking fast, I’d leave a me-sized cloud of dust in this shithole regressive country and never once look back”
Thomas Jefferson had “potatoes served in the French manner” at a White House dinner in 1802. The expression “french fried potatoes” first occurred in print in English in the 1856 work Cookery for Maids of All Work by Eliza Warren: “French Fried Potatoes. – Cut new potatoes in thin slices, put them in boiling fat, and a little salt; fry both sides of a light golden brown colour; drain.” This account referred to thin, shallow-fried slices of potato. It is not clear where or when the now familiar deep-fried batons or fingers of potato were first prepared. In the early 20th century, the term “french fried” was being used in the sense of “deep-fried” for foods like onion rings or chicken.
One story about the name “french fries” claims that when the American Expeditionary Forces arrived in Belgium during World War I, they assumed that chips were a French dish because French was spoken in the Belgian Army. But the name existed long before that in English, and the popularity of the term did not increase for decades after 1917. The term was in use in the United States as early as 1886. An 1899 item in Good Housekeeping specifically references Kitchen Economy in France: “The perfection of French fries is due chiefly to the fact that plenty of fat is used.”
Americans coined a phrase and ran with it, it seems 🤷♂️
This reminds me of when americans renamed French fries “Freedom Fries.”
This level of pettiness is something I am truly proud of, and love to see. When Canada floated that idea of welcoming in California, Oregon and Washington state as territories, my first thought was “I would move there so fucking fast, I’d leave a me-sized cloud of dust in this shithole regressive country and never once look back”
Where does the “French” in French fries come from? What made it French? I’ve never seen it associated with French cuisine. Only American.
Well,
Americans coined a phrase and ran with it, it seems 🤷♂️