Freedom Fries

Today will address the eagerly-awaiting question: Which country makes the better fries? And it is indeed curious that weAmericans call them "French fries": first off, the French refer to them simply as "frites", and furthermore many French classically view the fry as being of Belgian origin. However, according to the article on french fries in wikipedia, some of the earliest references to fried potatoes occur in French cookbooks, including a citation by Thomas Jefferson himself in describing a dish cooked up by his personal chef, the Frenchman Honoré Julian. I swear I'm not making this up.

Anyways, fries are a tough topic to tackle, given the large variety of fry quality that's out there. You've got your steak fries, your McDonald's fries, your curly fries, your Boardwalk fries....a huge variety in both France and in the United States, so how do you choose which ones to compare? But if I am allowed to making sweeping generalizations (and indeed I am, as this is MY blog), I have to say that the fries on the European side of the Atlantic are, on average, more potato-ey and filling than those skinny little fellers in America. Coupled with the fact that we embarrasingly changed their name to "Freedom Fries" for a brief period of time during the Iraq War, the edge goes to the French: they make the superior fry, though this one could have gone either way. The score, at the end of four days of intense competition: deux partout.