The French Fries Pages: Mmmm, Mmmm

"These pages have been created in order to help people better understand what they have, for so long, taken for granted," announces the introduction to the French Fries Pages, a paean to the delicious deep-fried spud.

The page offers a wealth of information, from history (French fries really did originate in France, probably in the mid-1700s) to recipes, to seven pages of very elaborate U.S. government regulations on frozen french fry evaluation, cooking and storage ("'Good flavor' means the good characteristic flavor and odor of properly prepared french fried potatoes. Such flavor is free from rancidity and bitterness, from pronounced scorched or carmelized flavors, and from off-flavors and off-odors of any kind.").

The idea for the French Fries Pages came one night in January, in an apartment in Astoria, Queens. Web page designer M W Grossman (the letters are his full first and middle names) was, as he puts it, "drinking quite heavily" and perusing the Web. He went looking for french fry sites and, to his surprise and chagrin, found none.

The very next day, Grossman went to the New York Public Library and spent 3½ hours doing French fry research. The French Fries Pages are the result of that effort.

It is also worth noting that Grossman, 31, used to work at McDonalds, first as a fry cook, then as a manager. He thinks his former employer makes by far the best fast food fries. "I eat them constantly," he says. "My wife gives me a look when we walk by a McDonalds. She knows I'm thinking about going in, even if we've just had a meal, even a good meal at a fancy restaurant."

Grossman has eaten fries all over the world. "I eat 'em with everything, even mayonnaise. Mustard's great. Grey poupon works in a pinch." Not surprisingly, the site is a veritable graduate course in international culture. In the Netherlands, " frites" are often eaten with peanut sauce. Belgians put mayonnaise on theirs. Inhabitants of Quebec eat fries with cheese curds, and call this concoction "Poutine."

The site also looks at the lighter side of fries. It offers "21 Things You Never Knew About French Fries," which informs readers that Europeans insist on eating fries with a miniature two-tine fork, and "22 Things To Do With French Fries Besides Eat Them," which is, thankfully, free of jab-in-the-ribs double-entendres one usually finds on lists of things to do with foods besides eat them. (His list consists of practical applications. You can, for example, make charcoal sketch pencils out of the fries that have spent six months languishing at the bottom of the oven.)

The site has been a success; It has had over 22,000 visitors in less than four months, not a bad number for a non-corporate, non-sex site with no real promotion. Grossman gets email from fry lovers all over the world.

Grossman began making Web pages a little less than a year ago. He had just gotten back from Germany, where he had worked in a brick factory, as both a consultant and an oven tender. (He describes the latter task as "very manual labor...there was nothing virtual about it.") While waiting for his wife to join him--a German native, she was having visa problems--Grossman taught himself HTML, the language of the Web.

And buys his fries.