Where did French fries come from?
No one is certain. Belgium and France both claim French fries. Belgian tradition says villagers fried potatoes in the 1600s, while Paris street vendors sold fries by the 1780s.
Belgians say people in the Meuse Valley fried small fish and, when the river froze, cut potatoes into fish shapes and fried them instead. Historians have not found firm evidence for this story, but fries, called frites, are a national passion in Belgium today.
In France, potatoes became popular in the late 1700s, partly thanks to Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, who promoted them as food. Fried potato sticks were sold by street vendors on the Pont Neuf in Paris around the time of the French Revolution.
Why they are called French
One theory says American soldiers in Belgium during World War I called them French fries because the Belgian soldiers spoke French. Others point out that the term French-fried potatoes appeared in English cookbooks in the 1800s, long before the war.
Did You Know?
In Belgium, fries are traditionally fried twice, first at a lower temperature and then at a higher one, which makes them crisp outside and soft inside.