Sunday, March 25, 2012

alright french, you win this snack item.

French fries.
Oh French fries I seriously always keep a bag of frozen fries in my freezer for those days when I come home from work angry and need a salty soothing snack. Yea that’s totally how I roll. Anyhoo who came up with frying up potatoes? A genius!...im sure, but was it seriously the French?
Turns out that potatoes were brought to Europe through Spanish explorer folk. They got em from Columbia and called them truffles. Oddly enough as a side note the word potato comes from the Haitian word batata which the Spanish turned into patata, which English speaking nations turned into potato…
Anyhoo they brought em and in the 17th century the first recorded record of fries goes to Belgium. They were totally frying up a bunch of them during winter months when they couldn’t fish. In fact the French totally didn’t think potatoes were good enough to consume. They used them as hog feed cause they thought if you ate them you would get leprosy. (insert eye roll here..) but Antoine-Augustine Parmentier, some dude who was held captive during the seven years war was fed only potatoes while in captivity. So when he was freed he totally went on a mission to let the world know about the awesomeness that is potatoes. Eventually the French were like, yea these things are good, and little French fry carts started to pop up everywhere!
Its weird to know that there was a time in recent history that people where weary of food that we now count on as staples. And another random fact, Ben Franklin was one of the first Americans to have French fries. He was invited to a fancy dinner made specifically to tout the awesomeness that was the potato. When he came back he even hosted a white house dinner that included “potatoes fried in the french manner” on the menu!
wanna know more: french fries

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