The Official French Fries Pages:
Questions from the Masses Answered
The following questions are answered here:
Is a tomato a vegetable?"
"Should you cook French Fries in suet?"
"French Fries are really Belgian, no?"
"Are fast food French Fries really solid potato?"
"Where can I purchase French Fries or the machinery to make them?"
Just what constitutes a vegetable?
Technically, the tomato could be considered a fruit. In the more encompassing sense of the word "fruit," most vegetables are fruits (seeds within, etc.), and even moreso when the word refers to the part of the plant which follows the bud and is responsible for further production/propogation of the plant.
The "seeds within" kinda makes a vegetable out of strawberries and leaves the poor coconut (fruit) without any good definition (it is hardly a "seed" in normal parlance [c.f. sunflower, grass seed, millet]).
We subscsribe to the "Corn Flakes" mitigation in deciding discrimination between fruits and vegetables -- if it tastes good in a bowl with Corn Flakes, it's a fruit. While this is certainly not the non plus ultra of decision-making criteria, the use of comparison takes this a step further in usefulness (e.g., "Would you rather eat a bowl of cornflakes with dices of mango or of zucchini?").
Another nomenclature decision-maker could be the "onion test," i.e., "Does it sautee well with onions?" If not, it's probably a fruit, Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay notwithstanding.
From our reader Ken Shirriff comes this piece from Tom Wolf's article, How the Lowly "Love Apple" Rose in the World (Smithsonian Magazine, August, 1990):
The year was 1893. Ten years earlier the Tariff Act of 1883 had placed a 10-percent duty on "vegetables in their natural state," but allowed fruits "green, ripe or dried" to enter the country duty-free. The Collector of Customs for the Port of New York, seizing the chance to do some collecting, announced that tomatoes were "vegetables in their natural state" and therefore subject to the tariff. The importers sued, eventually arriving at the highest court of the land......and lost, based on the opinion that tomatoes, "like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, celery and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert."
Justice Horace Gray asserted that tomatoes are vegetables "in the common language of the people."
Neat.
What kind of oil is best for cooking French Fries?
Some of our readers, like Jerrold, have asked us questions along the lines of, "What can you tell me about the selection of an oil?"
Our answer: "Lots. Much more than you really need or want to know, actually."
It seems our friend Jerrold thought that beef suet might make a good frying medium for converting potatoes into French Fries. It also seems, judging by the mail, that he's not the only one. A number of people think the ideal oil/fat is the one that can stand the most heat. This is the first fallacy.
Oil for cooking French Fries will not normally reach the temperatures required for oil breakdown or fire. Never cook your French Fries in oil hotter than 380° Fahrenheit (190° Celsius). They'll burn.
That said, pure beef suet makes fries taste like a rendering plant. The old McDonald's shortening ("Formula 47") was only 13% beef fat with 87% vegetable shortening.
Potatoes have a nasty tendency to pick up the flavours of everything in your fryer, which is why you have to use clean oil/shortening and never want to cook fries in the same oil as you did that fish or pile of onion rings you cooked last week. Unless you want your French Fries to taste like bird food or like the inside of a grease recycling barrel, nix the suet.
As for oil vs. shortening, the question doesn't really affect the home French Fry chef. Both will usually go rancid before they have time to appreciably deteriorate. Restaurants use shortening about 90% of the time (according to our contact at Hunt Wesson Foods, oil division, restaurant section). This is because shortening can take a beating. Any oil you buy in the Grocery store is gonna be able to hold up to the heat of French Fry cooking, which is 335-365° Fahrenheit (160-185°C), depending on your method of cooking. But how long will it be good if you keep it that hot?
The average fast food restuarant cooks a few hundred pounds of French Fries each day, which is a little more than even yours truly cooks. They use 100 pounds of shortening (50 lbs. per fryer) which should be filtered every day and they add a few pounds as necessary to replenish what the fries absorb. After 4-7 days, the shortening is changed. The stuff is kept at 335 degrees Fahrenheit (168° Celsius) for the better part of 16-20 hours. Regular oils just won't take that kind of abuse, unless they come in quart (liter) cans from your nearest service station. (Forget it: motor oil makes even worse French Fries than beef suet.)
You also might want to keep in mind that non-animal oils have no cholesterol and that animal fats and shortening are both saturated fats.
Our official recommendation would be either a pure vegetable shortening or vegetable oil. These have no flavours which would interfere with the delicate taste of French Fries. We note that many Greeks still use olive oil to cook French Fries (in a pan) which they season with oregano and salt. The Select Ware Labs, Culinary and Food Technology Division, tried this and concluded that it tastes pretty good.
French Fries are really Belgian, no?
Unfortunately, we at the Official French Fries Pages have been the target of much Belgian animosity, and 's growing. While we are always in favour of citation and placing blame firmly where it is deserved, we are loathe to get involved in lawsuits and flame wars. We will, therefore, place a couple of quotes in italics, but we will not name the sources.
It was with great surprise that I read your history of the "French fries". French Fries are actualy "Belgian Fries". They originate from this small country. If you want to know more about the history of the fries, I propose you get some information from a Belgian University or library as there have been several studies on the matter.
We've already done the research. We have reference books to back us up and we even went so far as to cite them in these pages. If you have hard facts (documented, checkable, from respected sources), please send them along with source information. We've asked this of everyone and so far, we haven't heard anything better than "I ought to know since I'm Belgian."
It's quite possible that potatoes were first cooked in that manner in an area which, for the most part, later became Belgium. The potato made its way to Europe in 1493. Belgium (as it exists today) came along a bit later... 1830 to be exact; October 4th, to be even more precise. Thomas Jefferson had brought "Potatoes, Fried in the French Manner" to the US more than 30 years before Belgian independence. Keep in mind that Europe wouldn't even have potatoes to make the things were it not for the Spanish and Portuguese who brought the spud back from the New World.
After fighting this out through E-Mail with the guy in Belgium who has his chip shop and a Web Site, he told us that:
- French Fries are really Belgian;
- That what he's talking about are Belgian Fries which "you can't get outside of Belgium"; and
- There's not much to argue over since he's talking about Belgian Fries and we're talking about French Fries.
Only a Belgian is able to manually cut the potatoes at the right size and knows exactly how to fried [sic] them (in a "Friteuse") an electrical set in which to cook the French-fries.
What kind of nationalistic claptrap is that? We swear, the notes coming from Belgians are getting more absurd each time! Do you also believe that only Chinese know how to make rice, only Italians from New York know how to make pizza and only Germans how to make sausage (and only the English know how to boil food beyond recognition)?
We really don't understand this long-running animosity between the Belgians and French over fried potato nomenclature, nor do we wish to get involved in the politics of it. We report the facts as we can find them. We would, however, voice the opinion that there simply must be something better upon which to base a national identity than fried potato snacks, no matter how delicious they might be. And then there's the fact that an incredibly small number of Belgian chip shops actually cut the potatoes up themselves rather than taking delivery of prepared strips. Considering the amounts served in a Frietkot/Fritesshopi> this is no wonder.
Are fast food French Fries made from real potatoes?
A lot of our readers have been asking us to settle bets, often on whether the French Fries found in fast food restaurants are real, solid potato or if they're processed from a reconstituted potato mass or something equally atrocious. Unless you live in an area where gambling is legal, we first need to add this disclaimer:
The Official French Fries Pages, its agents, its parent company and anyone else who might get in trouble for saying otherwise, hereby officially state that we do not condone gambling, even if we ourselves might partake in the activity on occasion.
That being said, our standard cut for settling bets is 10%. Please E-Mail us for details on where to send our 50 cents or 2 bucks or the 2.4 bottles of that case of Heineken that two people inevitably bet.
Back to the question. The simple answer: Nope, at least, not with the big boys in the business (Burger King, Wendy's, McDonald's, etc.). They use real potatoes which are processed in a really neat manner which we would love to show everyone if we could just get one of the big producers to help us out and spot us a ticket, a tour and permission to use a camera. As you may have noticed from the site's logo, our artists' renderings leave a bit to be desired. Until we get access you'll have to settle for our page on How Commercial French Fries are Made (with instructions on how to play along at home).
Other potato snacks such as Tater TotsTM are indeed processed, extruded, shaped, and so on, and have more than just spud in the ingredients. While they may be tasty too, someone else will have to make a Web site dedicated to those things.
There are certain "French Fry" products out there which are made from reconstituted, formed potato product -- most notably some devices one might see in pubs on the bar -- but what you're getting at the major fast food chains is real potato goodness.
Where can I purchase French Fries or the machinery to make them?
Not from us, unfortunately. There are a lot of manufacturers and producers out there and they seem to be based mainly in Oregon and in the Netherlands. We're not a part of them.
That's not to say we wouldn't be interested in some sort of agreement to broker their equipment. If you work for (or own) a company which makes French Fry machinery -- whether commercial or home use -- we would be interested in helping you to link up with customers, subject to review.
For the record: We (currently) have NOTHING to do with the French Fry industry, except that we really love their products. We have a few contacts in a few of the companies to give us some technical advice and information, but that's it. We don't sell potatoes, French Fries, manufacturing or processing equipment. We don't broker sales. We don't arrange meetings (except with some friends at certain restaurants that serve French Fries). We don't ship French Fries, either. We just eat them. Full stop. And should we ever get involved with the sales, our reviews will remain independent; we wouldn't recommend anything we wouldn't buy ourselves.
The French Fry industry, we have learned, is VERY secretive. In fact, more than one of our industry contacts has likened it almost to a sort of Mafia, which may be the reason we have so much trouble getting information. "Mafia" may be a bit strong; "oligarchy" might be a better term. Secretive? The industry makes the CIA look like just so many schoolgirls. Fierce competition? unlike the US and USSR (or even India and Pakistan), if these companies had nukes, well.. let's just say the cooking times at the various plants would be reduced. So would the plants themselves.
Further questions and answers will appear as necessary.
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