French Unjustily Fried

French Unjustly Fried?

By Don Rittner

Never let it be said that a congressman won’t go out of his way to look idiotic. Just ask Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration and his colleague Walter Jones, R-North Carolina. Jones recently circulated a letter suggesting that the congressional cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings be changed making "French Fries" into "Freedom Fries," and "French Toast" into "Freedom Toast." This is in retaliation over France’s refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq. Ney, who pushed it through, is quoted in the paper as saying "This action today is a small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France." Well, as they say in France, "Quels cretins."

These two boys have egg on their face! If they knew a little history, they wouldn’t be the current "toast" of the town for comedians and historians around the world.

First of all, French toast is not a "French" invention. Even funnier is French toast is an American creation, and more specifically it has an Albany, N.Y. birthrite. You see, Joseph French, an Albany area tavern keeper in 1724 served his "French" bread for breakfast, but his poor knowledge of grammar prevented him from putting the possessive apostrophe after his name to read on his menu, correctly, "French’s Bread."

In fact, the French call it 'pain perdu," which means "lost bread;" it’s made from 1 or 2 day-old bread and served mostly as desert, not breakfast.

Now there was a recipe for "French Toasts" in 1660 that called for "French bread sliced and toasted, then soaked in wine, sugar and orange juice." Obviously not even close to our traditional treat! I am now demanding that French toast officially be changed to "Albany Toast, " and instruct all local restaurants to make those changes in their menus.

On the other hand, France does claim the origin of French Fries ("frites"), but also does nearby Belgium who has more "Belgian Fry stands (frietkots), than breweries— and we all know how much the Belgians love their beer. In fact, many of the frietkot owners do so well they drive around in a Mercedes. To say Belgians love Belgian "frieten" is an understatement. Perhaps the confusion began as early as the 1700’s when Thomas Jefferson served as ambassador to France. After enjoying the Belgian special (southern Belgium is also French speaking), he served them at Monticello to his guests as "Potatoes, fried in the French Manner." After all, he wasn’t the ambassador of Belgium (which didn’t even exist as a country until 1830), but of France, so the confusion is forgivable.

While both the French and Belgians claim the origin of the fry, it is known that by the 1830’s both countries loved them. Today Belgium is the "French Fry" capital of the world, and as one of my Belgian friends tells me, the French don’t even know how to make them!!

French fries really took off in America after World War I when thousands of returning hungry American soldiers stationed in Northern France and Belgium demanded them. It was there that they had first tasted and dubbed them "French Fries," after the French-speaking people who sold them. Today, more than 4.5 billion pounds of French fries are sold in America each year.

This whole French fry/French toast debacle reminds me of an old Rodney Dangerfield joke, "She was so wild that when she made French toast, she got her tongue caught in the toaster." I wonder if that is worse than a congressman having his foot in his mouth?