Mmm… Vlaamse Frites

Jingo all the way, oh what fun it is to deride… (kottke.org)

Jason Kottke points out the silliness of the current protest by the Republicans that has resulted in french fries being rebranded as freedom fries in the House of Representatives’ cafeterias.

In addition to reminding me that our legislature is cursed with a majority of idiots, it also reminds me of many happy visits to the Vlaamse Frites shops in Amsterdam, including the one at Schiphol airport. They serve you a huge paper cone filled with delicious, golden fries and they top it with a generous dollop of mayonnaise, tomato sauce (slightly sweeter than American ketchup), or curry sauce. Now, I know mayo on fries may not sound appetizing, but it is surprisingly good, despite the fact that they squirt a huge glop of it from a device commonly used at sports stadiums in the States for dispensing glowing yellow cheese syrup onto tortilla chips for nachos.

I also love the little wooden forks for extracting mayo coated fries from inside the paper cone. The forks look kind of like the wooden spoons often served here with small cups of ice cream, except instead of having a rounded end with a slight depression, they have a forked end with two tines.

Marty Schwimmer over at The Trademark Blog also pointed out this great little history of french/flemish fries. Yet another reason I read The Trademark Blog every day. The only thing I didn’t like about the history of french fries was her dissing of chuños. Like the Incas, the current residents of the Andes dry potatoes in the sun, stomp on them to remove as much water as possible, and them leave them outside in the cold to freeze-dry. That technique provides them enough food to survive during the winter. Properly preserved, chuños can last for many years. When they Irish got hooked on potatoes, they should have asked for the chuños recipe.