08/01/2022
Just across the border to the south, Belgium is known for its chocolate, its waffles, its beer and its claim to be the founders of the French Fry/frites. Legend has it that American soldiers stationed with Belgian troops in the Second World War fell in love with the fried potatoes that were frequently made for them in the trenches. Upon returning to America after the war, they mistakenly named them “French fries,” not realizing that the French speaking Belgian soldiers were, in fact, not French! Belgium boasts having the best Frites in the world, however, we tried a lot of them and they just didn’t stand up to the Dutch Frites. Different potato, same technique, but fried in Beef tallow instead of the more flavorful peanut oil. In Bruges we visited the famous Frites Museum which was an interesting history of the potato (Peru), the evolution of deep fryers, and the technique they use to cook them properly, the same technique we adopted when we started this crazy journey over ten years ago! I’ll share that with you later.
