Talk:French fries/Archive 3

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Cilantro vs. coriander

A recent edit revived "cilantro" in a description of a Pakistani sauce. I don't quite get the logic of that. Cilantro is the Spanish name, and has become popular in some parts of the US, and in the context of Latin American cuisine, because of the large Spanish-speaking population which uses that herb. However, the Spanish name seems bizarre in a Pakistani context. Besides common sense (why would a Spanish name be used in Pakistan?), a crude test is the search [site:pk coriander] vs. [site:pk cilantro], which finds a 20:1 ratio. I suppose you could argue that that refers to the cilantro seed spice, but even [site:pk coriander-leaves] vs. [site:pk cilantro-leaves] is 25:1. --Macrakis 03:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I was uncertain about the term as well. But I was afraid that your modification from cilantro towards coriander might not necessarily have been correct. It is sometimes incomprehensible how a foreign term gets into a language, but it often has either a broader or a narrower meaning than at its origin. And as it was used in the term 'mint cilantro sauce', it might have been a coined term. As far as Google goes, on the .pk domain there is only one page for "mint cilantro": it puts "mint or cilantro (coriander) leaves" and further on "mint/cilantro" (in other words, whichever one ingredient) but also "coriander seeds" in a dish "Aam Ki Chatni"; this may indicate that the term 'coriander' is mainly used for the seeds and 'cilantro' for the leaves, especially for making a chutney sauce since in the fries article the author names the dish "pudina ki chutney". And there is also only one page for "mint coriander" but mentions: "mint, coriander leaves" and that about Iranian cuisine. Hardly convincing either way and statistically worthless with such extremely low counts. Perhaps it is best to simply accept the original author's input, as it had been there for several months. After all, the 'French fried potatoes' page is written in American English (it used to be named 'French fries' once), so it does not appear to matter much which term is in the article. Though it appears clear by the recipe including the leaves + the seeds mentioning "cilantro (coriander) leaves" that the link under cilantro towards coriander can best stay. In theory we should not have this discussion and simply remove the entire phrase as 'unsourced', but as it appears honest and hardly unlikely [I know mint and coriander leaves being used together in a Thai cuisine salad and those ingredients to occur in India as well] and as many other minor contributions to this article have not been thoroughly scrutinized... — SomeHuman 28 Jan2007 17:45 (UTC)

I agree that Google search is a blunt instrument in cases like this. But you seem to be assuming that "cilantro" is US usage and "coriander leaf" non-US usage. But cilantro is US usage specifically in the context of Mexican cooking (cf. OED 2nd ed), and was in fact rare outside the southwest until the 80's or so. I checked several Indian cookbooks published in the U.S., and although some of the recent ones give "cilantro" as a gloss for "coriander leaf", most agree on "coriander" as the primary name. Similarly for Bruce Cost's book on Asian ingredients. As for the south Asian context, try Google [dhaniya coriander] vs. [dhaniya cilantro].... --Macrakis 23:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain by books how the term 'kakkewallek'/'kékkewallek' (pronounced cack-a-wal-ek) came into Mechlinian dialect? It's a playground contraption that children on a row on it, bring in swinging motion by simultaneously dance-like stepping forth-and-back for a while. (For fellow-Mechlinians who never heard the word, ask older people about the thing that used to be in the Vrijbroek Park near the old 'Chalet'.) Decades after I had last heard the word, I discovered the English language term 'cake walk' to refer to an African American slaves' dance in the US South, "dancing forward alternating a series of short hopping steps with a series of very high kicking steps"... What I meant is, "mint-cilantro" or "mint-cilantro sauce" may be a coined term for something very specific, taking its name originally from and probably still referring to mint and (some kind of) coriander but not necessarily just that — as for cake-walk or cakewalk, the full term might say more than just its subterms and changing it to mint-coriander might create a biscuit-march. Fact remains that someone did use the term with cilantro for Pakistan, it might not have been a Mexican contributor... By the way, on the domain .pk, there is no 'dhaniya cilantro' but also only one 'dhaniya coriander' and as dhaniya is just the translation of a mere word... Mechlinians do not talk about a 'walk' (however written), our word for that is 'wandeling' and even older Mechlinians could't imagine an amusement park object if they heard 'kakkewandeling'. I do not know how much less aware people in the US are about the meaning of 'cilantro' than of 'coriander', even if it is not at all widespread, the link to coriander that you provided will be of assistance. — SomeHuman 31 Jan2007 22:26 (UTC)

What are you going on about? Totnesmartin 15:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Read the whole section. Slowly. ;-) — SomeHuman 1 Feb2007 20:43 (UTC)

A simpler and more plausible theory is that the original author just happened to be more familiar with the word "cilantro" than "coriander". Mint-coriander fresh chutney is classic in South Asian cooking, not a recent introduction with Mexican influence! --Macrakis 21:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Irish chips

"In Ireland, chips are served with hot mustard, but Thai chilli sauce is gaining in popularity. Fish and chips or kebab are common." I've lived in Ireland for 20 years and eat chips from a variety of outlets in Galway and Cork, and I have never seen chips with hot mustard of thai chilli sauce served. Any reference to this from other users or a food site? Otherwise should be chaged. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.71.84.86 (talk) 01:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

remove personal opinion

The article obtained a sentence about Belgian restauranteurs "(according to this a French-Canadian and a 'half-Belgian' [burnt half his passport, I assume] which made me kick out their nationality earlier): "According to restauranteurs Denis Blais and Andre Plisnier, it is equally likely that the Belgians or the Spanish invented them.<ref>Denis Blais and Andre Plisnier The Belgo Cookbook</ref>" While looking for the details of this reference, I could not find any source that refers to this statement in their book, though the cookbook was clearly noticed. I fail to see why two guys who opened a fancy chips-and-mussels restaurant in London and wrote a line of prose in a cookbook, would have any expertise on the origin of their speciality's ingredients above the average reader of this French fried potatoes article. These men simply gave their mere opinion, and just mentioned it in their cookbook. It is to Wikipedia worth as much as mine: this opinon was not noticed except by the Wikipedian who inserted the sentence in the article. The WP:SOURCE here only corroborates these guys to have that possibly very biased opinion, not such being based on study, testimonies, research, facts, nor of these men being seen as authorities in the field of food history. I therefore removed their opinion as this is a personal bias as much as any Wikipedian's opinion would be. — SomeHuman 16 Apr2007 17:47 (UTC)

The passage deleted mentioned the "low countries" which means the area, not Belgium specifically. Professional chefs are relevant authorities on culinary matters. If you have alternative sources, you are free to cite them - I am reverting. 1Z 18:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Your authorities are not historians, nor do they claim to be so, nor are they considered such. Another source shows your authorities to have told the story by historian Jo Gerard in their book as well; since the writer of that source cannot make out whether it is a joke or not, apparently your great authorities even failed to mention their source. Reverted to encyclopaedical version instead of cheap promo.

The "low countries" are the Low Countries and that was mentioned with the 'Belgo' cooks, the Wikipedian writer had added this. In the 'Spain' section such was not mentioned, its Spanish Belgium version had no end to its time frame. By mentioning the Spanish Netherlands and these ending more than a century before Belgium came to exist, we have a (still too wide) time frame (Columbus 1492 or the larger Spanish Netherlands 1579, until the Treaty of Utrecht 1713 or more than a century before -apart from the short-lived spark U.S. of Belgium in 1790- Belgium proper in 1830) for the Galician story, which still requires a source.

— SomeHuman 16 Apr2007 19:46-20:13 (UTC)

Gerard mentions Namur and Dinnat, which are in what we now call Belgium. If fail to see the relevance of the "gap". 1Z 20:46, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

What 'gap'? Gerard's Namur and Dinant story is not related to the Galician one (at least not by any sources so far and not by the article). In fact, sources are rather contradictory: Gerard mentions poor people to fry potatoes in 1680, which is during the Spanish Netherlands but usually one would see nobility taking over the culinary novelties from (in this case foreign) rulers first. According to the source Geschiedenis van de frieten, potatoes themselves became only widespread ["alom" means "everywhere'] in the later Belgian area around 1750 (still before their introduction in France), nearly 4 decades after the Spanish influence had ceased (seems a plausible period for becoming widespread) and most surprisingly even 70 years after it would already have been a cheap replacement food. Especially since the rocky and mountainous area of Namur and Dinant is not well suited for growing potatoes, contrarily to the West Flemish Polders at 150 km, at the time an impossible distance for transporting bulky products. Your guess is as good as mine. I have to admit that one can grow potatoes on a smaller scale in just about any Belgian area, and river valleys (Jo Gerard's fishing story) would be the more likely places between Namur and Dinant; but not the most likely places to have potatoes as a cheap product so long before they became common everywhere.

The time frame being too wide, simply means that the alledged Galician origin dates from between 1492 and 1713, over two centuries is an ethernity in the history of French fried potatoes.

— SomeHuman 16 Apr2007 21:19-21:45 (UTC)

I never said anything about Galicia. 1Z 21:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Did you read the article? The 'Spain' section does. — SomeHuman 18 Apr2007 03:10 (UTC)

A note on translation

In English, a shop selling shoes is a shoe shop, singular even if it has 1000 shoes in stock, and despite selling them 2 at a time. A chip shop is likewise not a chips shop. 1Z 00:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC) "Stall" is a more natural translation than "shack". It does not just mean a market stall. I can illustrate both points with this link 1Z 02:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Translation of 'kot'? No way, never. 'Kraam' = 'stall', on a market or elsewhere. Descriptions and translations are different topics, and explicitly literal translations a third kind. By the way, there is no difference between usage of plural in a shoe shop or a schoenwinkel, this has nothing to do with the explicitly literal translation 'chips shack' for 'frietkot'. A literal translation is not a translation into a properly used term, but expresses what the original language says - more often than not this creates an error against the language translated to; that's why it is called a literal translation and why it is explicitly mentioned to be one. — SomeHuman 18 Apr2007 03:10 (UTC)

Re: "Professional chefs are relevant authorities on culinary matters." Yes, they are relevant authorities on current cooking practice. They are not (a priori) authorities at all on culinary history. The vast majority of cookbook authors and professional chefs have no particular historical knowledge, and often simply repeat "common wisdom". There are a few who make an effort. For example, Claudia Roden and Giuliano Bugialli have actually read some of the historical sources. That still doesn't make them full-fledged historians, but it's better than nothing.... --Macrakis 03:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Boardwalk fries

Does the "boardwalk fries" paragraph add value to the article? It sounds more like an advertisment than encyclopedic text. –Henning Makholm 21:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right. I just noticed that it is actually a registered trademark, not a generic term. Let's remove the advertising. --Macrakis 22:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

chipped potatoes

Chips; think they're called chips, afaik, because they're chipped potatoes, as opposed to mashed, sliced, halved etc. Quite easy really. I'll leave it out of the article for now as: there's a slim chance I'm wrong and there's some doubt about the origin which is why the article doesn't mention it, and also, we probably need to have a row about how many paces behind 'French fries' the explanation gets to appear:/ Hakluyt bean 22:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Chip on shoulder

Re some earlier discussions about the difference between fries and chips in the UK -

Brits come into contact with 'fries' at McDonald's (and similar), principally because they get asked in those American restaurants 'do you want fries?' to which Brits say 'uh, ok'. Sometimes supermarket chips are branded 'fries' if they resemble the skinny chips in McDonald's. The same thing may happen in restaurants other than American fast food outlets - so if you see 'fries' on a pub menu, you'll probably get skinny chips. Both supermarket and restaurant 'fries' are usually baked, incidentally, not fried.

But colloquially, if you had friends round for a meal, you would (I'm fairly sure) never offer them 'fries' no matter what appeared on the packaging. You'd offer them chips. If you'd made them yourself (props by the way), they'd certainly be chips (no matter what shape they were, and even if you fried them, as you probably would). And if you bought a McDonald's takeaway, they'd be 'fries' when you bought them, but by the time you got them home, they'd probably be 'chips'.

Just wondering what other Brit or non-U.S. residents think. Hakluyt bean 23:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely, on all points. Incidentally one day at lunch (in Cork, Ireland) last month I was actually offered the choice of fries, chips, potatoes or salad with my meal, and I saw other patrons eating two very different looking fried potatoes, one skinny and long (fries), the other shorter and fatter (chips). Slashygood 16:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It does seem to be pretty much just America that calls chips "french fries". My mother was traveling on business with a chap from South Africa and ate at a NYC restaurant. The South Africa companion ordered fish and chips and got a puzzled look from the waiter in return. He was served a plate with cooked fish and the cooks had just opened a packet of crisps and emptied it next to the fish. The American usage of the word "french fries" hasn't penetrated the rest of the world. Even though like every McDonald's serves long narrow fries, the use of the word french fries for chips just isn't the norm, outside of America. I guess, however, that the majority of Wikipedia editors are American and that the servers are based in America, so there is nothing the world viewers can do is stare at bewilderment at this page and try to process the explanation that chips are being called "french fries", rather than explaining briefly on the article that in America they call chips "french fries". JayKeaton 16:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

While I don't doubt your story, in my own experience in different parts of the United States "Fish and Chips" is undertood (an marketed as such) to mean fish and french fries - perhaps the only context where chips frehcn fries as it is seen as distinctly British. In the reverse direction I have seen jam made from grapes in the UK called "grape jelly" I doubt jam with any other fruit would be called jelly, but the product has such American connotations. Dainamo (talk) 14:07, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, You could get away with calling french fries, or any other sort of fries, chips. I think the main difference between fries and chips is that fries are crunchy on the outside and fluffy/non-existant on the inside. Chips are harder with more texture. Fries are only french when they are McDonalds thin - becuase some places do do steak fries etc which are a lot thicker, but not real chips still. So I'm thinking the title should either be 'cut fried potatoes' or 'chipped potatoes'. Personally I'd say it should be just 'Chips' but I know there'll be a few americans who don't like that 87.194.39.69 15:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I say the main difference between them is that Chips can be home-made while Fries can't due to as far as I've known, Fries always aren't able to be made with-out a machine (or with great diffeculty) while chips can be made with a potato and a knife into any shape you want (Round Chips, little chips and whatever I cut them into lol). Also you can make Chips outta Parsnips as well. 86.143.208.8 15:16, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The situation here in Australia is pretty much the same as user Hakluyt bean mentions above with regards to the UK. The only time you hear the word "Fries" is from a server at an American style fast food restaurant (McDonalds etc) & even then it's "Fries" never "French Fries". Once purchased if you were then to offer them to someone else you'd ask them if they'd like some "Chips", not some "Fries". Long thin styled oven baked chips available in the frozen foods section of supermarkets are sometimes labelled "Shoestring Fries" but once again would be referred to as "chips" in conversation. 124.179.92.243 (talk) 21:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC) Swampy.

Frites

"Pommes de terre frites" definitely means deeps deep-fried potatoes. Ericd 19:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

actually it means "apples of earth fried". What's your point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.174.93 (talk) 16:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

French vs. Afrikaans

How can Afrikaans slap chips be relevant while French chips are not ? Ericd 20:43, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

If I understand the claim in the article correctly, "slap chips" is an instance of an Afrikaans word that has found use in (a regional variant of) English. That is relevant because it describes how the subject of the article is referred to in the language of this Wikipedia. It is directly opposite from wanting to list cases where an English word has found use in other language (or even how non-English words are used to refer to variants of deep-fried potato in non-English languages, which people have also wanted to insert into this article from time to time). –Henning Makholm 22:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Pommes Pont-Neuf

Never heard of theses... Source please ? Ericd 21:46, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

How about:

• Evelyn Saint-Ange, Paul Aratow (translator), La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange: The Essential Companion for Authentic French Cooking, p. 553.

By the way, that is a fabulous cookbook. Translation is very good, but the original language is of course even better. --Macrakis 01:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

gringos

"French fries have been popularized worldwide in part by United States-based fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King. "

Yeah, sure. Always the same... You did nothing!

Waffle-cut fries

Waffle-cut fries (also called waffle fries) are a form of French fries, not potato chips/crisps as are pommes gaufrettes. Some restaurants in the United States, such as Chick-fil-A, serve them as their standard form of fries. Most Americans would interpret waffle potatoes as waffle-cut fries rather than gaufrettes, which are rare in the United States. The photos here are less than ideal, but have the virtue of licenses that make them available for use. Photos that better illustrate the point are photo of waffle-cut fries and photo of gaufrettes. — VulcanOfWalden 08:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a clear-cut difference, certainly not enough to put them in different articles. There are thick and thin waffle-cut fries, just as there are thick (steak fries +/- = pommes pont-neuf) and thin (straw potatoes = pommes pailles). --Macrakis 11:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The clear-cut difference between French fried potatoes and waffle-cut fries or pommes gaufrettes or crisps, is in the first sentence of the article: the first-mentioned are cut into batons. Between the next two, there does not appear to be any intrinsic difference, as also Macrakis points out. Whether the holes in these makes them very different from crisps, I doubt: I assume they will be very much alike to eat; nevertheless, crisps are as far as I know usually eaten cold, whereas the others may be eaten hot... In any case, neither type can possibly fit the definition of French fried potatoes and mustnot appear in this article with more than a short mentioning (unless it might be in the section 'See also'), certainly not with a picture. The Chick-fil-A or whatever, simply does not sell French fries, no more than lots of restaurants that sell dishes typically served with French fries, with croquettes instead of French fries. It's as simple as having different names for instance for differently shaped pieces of wood, even if the techniques and materials can be identical. — SomeHuman 15 Jul2007 23:19 (UTC)

I googled for English-language pages (while demanding "the" to occur, to prevent non-English pages without language indicator to be included), for "potato waffles" (773), misspelled "potatoe waffles" (240), "waffle potatoes" (203), "waffle-cut potatoes" (77), "waffled potatoes" (41). The figures do not refer to the often unverifiable raw counts initially reported by Google (that also include 'similar' pages such as archived versions of otherwise identical pages), but to the more reliable number of pages that are actually presented (which number corresponds with the one shown when going to the last result page of the list). But there appear to be two very distinct products:

The potato waffles product is available frozen, prepared from reconstituted potato and is noted to contain monosodium glutamate["What's really in your food? (Z41_F4T_ingredients_Leaflet.pdf.pdf)" (PDF). British Heart Foundation, republished by Tamarside Community College, Plymouth, UK. Retrieved 2007-07-26. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |url2= ignored (help)], they may be rather large (4 in a package of 227 g), and they may be prepared in many ways straight from the frozen product (in an oven, pan-fried, deep-fried). The French fried potatoes article mentions waffle-cut potatoes or pommes gaufrettes that are shaped by cutting a fresh potato with an instrument with a jagged cutting edge, and then making a similar parallel cut at a 90 degrees angle, and then deep-fried. That produces a differently shaped and much smaller product that can be assumed to resemble French fried potatoes: having the identical ingredient and thickness similar especially to the thinner variants of French fries, and being cooked in a similar way (although one contributor had mentioned them to be fried only once, the recommendable two-batch deep-frying of French fries is not mandatory to allow the name 'French fried potatoes'). The English language (or any other language as far as I know) however, did not as yet recognize the waffle-cut potatoes as 'French fried potatoes'; and as the shape of otherwise identical materials often suffices to maintain a different term per different shape, waffle-cut potatoes do not belong in the French fried potatoes article (other than a short mentioning of their existance), as I explained earlier here above. But I think the waffle-cut potatoes do deserve an article (origin, availability, details on how they get cut and by what instrument or device, the pictures as VulcanOfWalden linked in the top comment of this section, ...). — SomeHuman 27 Jul2007 00:05 (UTC)

French Fries are not more Belgian than French

It makes no sense that the French think Belgians invented French Fries. Belgians are known as big French Fries' eaters and not as FF' creators. French Fries are also associated to Americans. There is no proof that Belgians invented French Fries. This is only one assumption. French cookers claim that is a parisian creation during the french revolution. French fries were called "pommes Pont-Neuf", which means popatoes Pont-Neuf. Pont-Neuf is a Paris' bridge.

<<During the controversy over "Freedom fries," French people often commented that the food was actually Belgian, or at least a Belgian specialty.>> a joke ??? French People said rather than French was synonym of freedom 81.56.0.224 23:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization

I understand the rationale of capitalizing the national adjective of France: "French fries"; but I've also seen it written "french fries" quite frequently. Are both correct? Applejuicefool 09:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC) I like french fries. they have lots of kinds like potato, zesties, and chicken (as in burger king)

Way Too Many Images

You should get rid of some, you dont need all of them--Blue-EyesGold Dragon 08:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Move back to French fried potato?

This article was moved to "Fried Potato Pieces" by an indef-blocked vandal ([1]). I suggest moving it back to its previous title, "French fried potatoes", and removing the phrase "fried potato pieces" from the lede, because the current title is neither a common term for the article's subject, nor does it describe the article's subject – "Fried potato pieces" could refer to any kind of cut and fried potatoes, whereas this article specifically addresses French fries (i.e., potatoes cut into strips and deep fried). --Muchness 20:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The current title is inaccurate, and the move happened without any discussion. –Henning Makholm 15:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur. The article name must be a commonly-used name for the subject. -- Coneslayer 15:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've listed this page at WP:RM. --Muchness 15:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, why not just list it at "Uncontroversial moves"? The whole RM process should not be required to restore an article from an ill-advised move, else we'll be doing this again in a week when someone else decides to move it to "fragments of edible tubers of the nightshade family immersed in boiling lipids". --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 13:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Deep fried potato sticks? instead of a chips v french fries v fries debate. 132.205.99.122 20:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Aaand, it's back at its proper place. Thanks to Muchness for noticing that it had been moved (somehow article moves do not seem to show up on watchlists?). –Henning Makholm 12:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)