“Everything (in the UK) comes with chips, which are French fries. You put vinegar on them. Cookies are biscuits and potato chips are crisps” – Scott Walters
March 14th in the USA is Potato Chips Day which I confess makes me smirk because in the USA they don’t even know what a potato chip is so I am going to take a look at how people prefer to eat their chips and watch out because I although I don’t want to offend anyone I am going to be awarding points.
I posted previously on eating fried potatoes in a Friterie in Northern France so it is only really polite to start with our nearest continental neighbours.
Friteries are a feature of this part of northern Europe and are a simple place, usually outside on wooden benches, to buy and eat French fries accompanied by a selection of traditional sauces and accompaniments. The thin strips of potato are fried twice, first to drive out the moisture and second to achieve the essential golden crispness of the French Fry.
The French and the Belgians eat more chips per head than any other nation, USA third, UK fourth, Eygpt is fifth (they grow a lot of potatoes in Eygpt) so you might expect the French, along with close neighbours the Belgians and the Dutch to know a thing or two about chips and they do make a good job of cooking them it has to be grudgingly said but as soon as they are served up they demonstrate a dreadful lack of culinary style and taste.
They immediately apply a dollop of horribly sloppy mayonnaise!
Now mayonnaise is fine on lettuce leaves or as an ingredient in a McDonalds burger, it gives them a bit of taste after all, but it really shouldn’t be smeared all over a helping of lovingly prepared potato chips and I am reminded here about a scene from the film Pulp Fiction and a conversation between Jules and Vincent…
… “Do you know what they put on their French Fries in Holland instead of Ketchup?” – “What? “ – “Mayonnaise” – “No Way.” – “Yes, I’ve seen them do it man they f*****g drown them in that s**t.”
Marks out of 10 for the French and the Belgians and the Dutch – 6 and that includes a bonus point because (as you can see in the first picture) at least they call them chips!
However, if you think that is bad then let’s cross the River Rhine into Germany where they serve up a variation called pommes rot-weis (potatoes red and white) named rather unimaginatively it is said after the colour scheme on level-crossing barriers and this toxic combination is achieved by smothering the poor chips in not just the evil mayonnaise but a good slug of tomato ketchup for good measure which has the effect of turning the classic dish into a sort of Salvador Dali gastro-interpretation.
I don’t know about the colour of level crossing barriers more like the rags and blood of a barbers pole if you ask me.
Marks out of 10 for the Germans – 4.
As I mentioned in my previous post Spain makes a creditable claim to be origin of chips so let’s head south now across the Pyrenees into Iberia.
Spain has patatas aioli which is a mayonnaise with garlic and having already dismissed mayonnaise as inappropriate then the addition of the foul tasting noxious onion bulb is not going to improve it one taste bud notch in my opinion; and then there is patatas bravas with a spicy sauce whose ingredients vary from region to region.
Generally I am a big fan of Spanish Tapas but my recommendation would have to be to avoid the patatas bravas at all costs.
I have two issues with them. First of all they don’t even look like chips and instead of being long and slender they are served in solid lumps of fried potato and secondly the bravas sauce is often so fierce that it completely spoils the dish all together and you can add to that the fact that it frequently (depending on region) includes a whole host of odd ingredients such as chorizo, baked chicken or fried fish, none of which in my opinion should be anywhere near a sauce for simple chips – if you want to muck about with vegetables then stick to pumpkins.
The Spanish like these things so much that they are even served in McDonalds…
Marks out of 10 for the Spanish – 3.
Nearby Italy shouldn’t really be featuring because they don’t really do chips or fries. There is an awful lot of street food in Italy but this is mostly pizza and deep fried rice balls. I did come across this food stall in Naples which sold all sorts of fried food served in a brown paper cone and one of the options was fried potatoes which looked more like English chips than French Fries.
I am not going to score the Italians because that wouldn’t really be very fair
Hastily retreating to the United Kingdom I am first going to head north to Scotland despite the fact that Scots deep fry chocolate so cannot really be taken seriously in a culinary sense. In Glasgow and Edinburgh they have a fondness for gravy with chips and I find that odd because in my copinion gravy should only really be served up with the weekly Sunday roast.
Having said that it is really rather tasty so marks out of 10 for the Scots – 7.
In The UK we have a liking for Chinese food, I like Chinese food but I cannot understand why anyone orders chips with a Chinese. To begin with chips don’t really go with Chinese food, rice is a much better option and secondly they almost always taste dreadful. Chips from Chinese restaurants I have generally found to be too greasy and cooked in oil that is just not hot enough, hence they just soak up oil and are under cooked, limp and soggy.
This is so wrong at every level – chips with rice and gravy!
So, marks out of ten for Chinese chips – 0
Which brings me back rather neatly to England and especially my home town, the fishing port of Grimsby. They know a thing or two about chips in Grimsby let me tell you and there is a chip shop in every street – sometimes two and people here know best how to cook them and to eat them.
Never mind the fancy restaurant trend for twice or even thrice fried potatoes they just cut them up and sling them in a vat of boiling fat or preferably beef dripping and then serve them piping hot and crispy on the outside with delicate fluffy middles with the only two accompaniments that chips really need – a generous sprinkle of salt and lashings of good vinegar. No mayonnaise, no gravy, no tomato sauce and definitely no curry!
Marks out of 10 for the English – 10 – of course.
So what about the USA you might ask. Well to be honest I have dismissed the New World completely. Is that fair? Well, yes I think it is and I will explain exactly why.
Whilst I am prepared to concede that they know how to prepare French Fries in McDonalds and other similar places the bottom line is simply this – they don’t even know what chips are, they think they come in a foil packet. Please take note – these are not potato chips they are potato crisps!
To be fair to the U.S.A. I should point out that they do have a National French Fry Day every 13th July.
My research informs me that in Australia they cannot make their minds up whether they are potato crisps or potato chips. Let me help my antipodean pals on this point – these are potato crisps!
Anyway marks out of 10 for the USA – 0. This might seem a little harsh but the rules are that you have got to compare apples with apples!
So let’s finally go north to Canada
“in Eastern Canada there is poutine with curds of cheese and gravy. None for me thanks but there people are gaga for the stuff”. My blogging pal Sue from “Travel Tales of Life”
Graphic content warning – do not proceed beyond this point if you have a weak stomach or are of a nervous disposition…
…because this is Poutine from Canada…
When I first heard of this I was convinced that it was some sort of wind-up, but apparently not, you can even get it in McDonalds, but thankfully only in Canada…
Try eating that in your car without making a mess of your shirt and trousers while you are driving down the motorway.
Marks out of 10 for Canada – minus 10
Anyway, enough of all this, let me tell you my favourite. In this picture taken in France my mum has gone for the tomato ketchup option and is wagging her fry around to prove it. Alan has kept things simple and luckily is not wagging his fry at anyone, my brother Richard has gone for the classic salt and vinegar combo and although I am not in the picture (obviously I was taking it) you can clearly see my preferred accompaniment is a bottle of cold beer – just don’t mistake it for the vinegar and pour it over the chips!
We used to be able to get such good fish and chips (with salt and vinegar), wrapped in newspaper, in Adelaide, South Australia. Those days are long gone.
I’ve tried that poutine stuff … ugh.
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Ah, fish and chips in newspaper, I feel a wave of nostalgia coming on!
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Minus 10!? I demand a recount. 🙂 In all honesty I didn’t eat poutine until I was an adult. It’s an eastern Canadian fave and I didn’t even know about it in my teens. I don’t actually like it myself. I shall have to get to the UK asap apparently!
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I am totally biased of course but I do think UK has the best chips. Yorkshire chips cooked in beef dripping are the absolute best!
Thanks for introducing me to poutine!
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Perhaps you would be more fond of some Canadian maple syrup? 🙂
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We get Maple Syrup here in UK. I don’t buy it I have to say. It looks like our own Golden Syrup and I don’t buy that either. When i was a boy Golden Syrup Sponge pudding was usually on the menu at least once a week as dessert. I liked it then but it would be too sweet for my taste buds now!
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We bought the most divine order of chips a couple of weeks back in Australia’s seaside town of Ulladulla. Served with a sprayer of vinegar on the side. I think you’d have given it 10/10. I’d post a pic of them here if I could.
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The chips sound wonderful but I really like that name – Ulladulla!
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I really enjoyed this Andrew! Here in Aus we usually go for the tomato sauce but I agree salt is best of all, not sure about lashings of vinegar, maybe just a tad!
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When I was a boy my dad used to get cross with me for using too much vinegar. He would wait for me to stop and then take my plate and pour the excess onto his own chips!
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Sigh, such an attitude about US French Fries. 🙂 You have missed out on the variety of fries we have-something for all tastes. There are regular fries (the thin one) and steak fries (much wider, a bit of a slab of potato) and curly fries (curly fries) and pan fries sometimes called home fries (fried in a pan) and sweet potato fries (they are orange) and crinkle cut fries and shoestring fries (very thin) and waffle fries and fries with the potato skins left on. And then for dipping there is of course ketchup but don’t forget the chili and cheese and other ways to smother a fry. And I know it sounds odd but some people dip their fries in ranch dressing. And we fry so many other things, like cheese, dill pickles, jalapenos, zucchini, and even kale. 🙂 Oh, interesting. I didn’t realize you fried your fries twice.
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There is going to be a lot of variety today I guess!
We get most of those options, the frozen chips/fries cabinet at the supermarket is one of the biggest in the store!
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Somehow I just knew Grimsby would win. And you’re quite right of course, In French ‘les frites’ are chips and it’s also a nickname for the Belgians. ‘Les’ chips are crisps and in my time as a French teacher I only had to explain that 14,358 times. The kids seemed to catch on really quickly.
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Grimsby chips are good but my favourites are from Yorkshire fried in beef fat!
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yes!
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Sadly our village chip shop has become a Chinese take away. The chips are simply not the same but at least they’re still just about edible. Apologies, but I will not be referring them to this blog in case it gives them the wrong sort of ideas.
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Chinese chips are rather curious I find but not altogether disappointing!
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You’ve obviously never tried poutine, I see. It’s delicious.
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Looks like an acquired taste to me if you don’t mind me saying!
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Mayo, ketchup, curry sauce…. love all of these with chips (not at the same time though!!). My Scottish ancestry must be coming through though because my top pick would be gravy. My husband understands this not one bit, he is firmly in agreement with you and it’s a beer every time.
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I rather like gravy on chips but only when served with a meat pie. Certainly not fish!
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I’m weird in this anyway as I don’t like chip shop fish!!
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I don’t like restaurant fish – too much bicarbonate of soda in the batter!
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I think I would like fried potatoes in any of those countries.
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There is something special about fried potato, that’s for sure!
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When I lived and worked in England I did develop a fondness for vinegar on my FRENCH FRIES but here in the States I use ketchup. If I have fish and chips here (chips, not crisps) I put vinegar on all of it. Here I eat potato chips from a bag though some restaurants are getting good and making their own. When in England I’m content that fries are chips and chips are crisps. One just needs to learn the language.
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I have never liked ketchup on chips but am quite partial to a dollop of brown sauce. A great way to eat chips is with a fried egg. A runny yolk makes a perfect accompaniment.
Cooking bacon seems to be another culinary item that we are unable to agree upon!
Thanks for your contribution.
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Ditto on runny yolk with potato, ‘hash browns’ being my preference in that respect.
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Here in Wales, some of us like mint sauce on our chips, Andrew. It’s not only for putting on roast lamb. 😀
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My mother-in-law used to put mint sauce on everything!
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Was she welsh?
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Usually, I don’t eat potato at all, but the best fried potato in my life, I ate in Riga, Latvia, in the cheap restaurant of Lido. It was something… I couldn’t stop.
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Potato is so versatile Victor. I never tire of it. I don’t remember Potato in Riga but I am certain to have had some!
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Next time in Riga, find Lido in the old city.
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I ate there a couple of times, good food and good value!
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And good beer isn’t it?
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I remember it well Victor. Much better than the out-of-town Lido!
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My partner pours vinegar on his fish and chips, but I only pour it on the fish. Vinegar on the chips makes them far too soggy for my taste. I generally do with just a bit of salt. Ketchup these days has far too much sugar. That German version with the dollop of mayo and ketchup would be what’s served here quite often, but it’s mixed together… utterly unappetizing. There is so much variation in the sort of chips one gets at different establishments, that it doesn’t seem fair to judge an entire country by it.
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Just a bit of mischief fun Gunta! Vinegar on fish but not chips sounds like a process that requires careful precision!
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…but manageable before the beers! 😀
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Andrew, This really must be the highlight of your blogging career. It should be essential reading for any country in the world that grows potatoes and then fries them. I don’t know where you got the idea that Australians haven’t decided if you call ’em chips or crisps. They are bloody chips. Crisps come in silver foil bags and you buy them in petrol stations. When I was a kid my brother and I would each buy sixpence worth of chips wrapped in newspaper with salt not vinegar on our way home from church. Sixpence worth was the right size to fit neatly in the inside pocket of our Sunday suits. No vinegar because it would mark our clothes and we’d get into deep doggy-poo from our mum when we got home. The sixpence was the change we got left over when we put our collection in the plate.
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Thanks for putting me straight on the this point John and for adding your memories to the post.
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Oh be fair, Andrew. I don’t think any Spaniard would think patatas bravas were chips. They’re a potato dish, sure, but not chips, and no tapas selection would be complete without them!
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Fair point Margaret but I never order them with my tapas.
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That’s fine. Each to his/her own!
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Ooooh we have areas of disagreement on this one Andrew! For me, mayonnaise is THE perfect sauce for chips, and I really can’t stand it if chips are smothered in salt and vinegar. As a child I thought I hated chips but then realised it was the salt and vinegar that I disliked. Oh, and patatas bravas is an essential part of being in Spain. Poles apart on this one!
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My grandchildren make a toxic mix of mayonnaise and tomato sauce. I seem to be in the minority over patatas bravas.
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I agree chips with a curry or a Chinese meal doesn’t really work, though lots of people like it. HOWEVER – I was once in a Chinese restaurant frequented largely by Chinese people and which didn’t therefore have much vegetarian food to offer. One of the things I ordered was salt and chilli potatoes, in other words – spicy chips! Blew my head off, they were amazing! Would eat again. But then, I always order patatas bravas.
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Thanks for adding this Anabel. I made a tapas selection for dinner tonight including some patatas bravas.
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