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French Fries





In areas where "chips" is the common term, "French fries" usually refers to the thinner variant found in US-influenced Fast Food restaurants, or to the even thinner "shoestring potatoes". In North America "chips" generally means Potato Chips (called "crisps" in the UK and Ireland), which are deep-fried very thin slices of potato that are usually served at room temperature. A more recent hybrid of thicker cross-cut splicings, and generally eaten hot, is "waffle-cut potatoes" (not to be confused with Potato Waffle s made from Reconstituted potato).

HISTORY

French-fried potatoes were likely invented during the 18th Century in the area that later became Belgium . The name "French" was applied to them in (American) English at the beginning of the 19th Century .


Culinary origin of the term

The straightforward explanation of the term is that it means potatoes fried in the French sense of the verb: "to fry" can mean either used with a plural Feminine Substantive , as in ''pommes de terre frites'' ("deep-fried potatoes").