Gavin’s Digital Diner

Despite their “American” name, French fries are not French.  Most people attribute their origin to Belgium.  However, there is a bit of a controversy. 

Some think that the “French” in French fries actually comes from the verb “frenched” — meaning to cut into thin strips.  Why do I care — well, I like French fries, I eat them often, and I like to know about the things I eat. I’m just that way.

Speaking of all things French, I was struck by the fact that changing the name of “French fries” to “freedom fries” seems to imply that France is now the land of the free.

I was in Belgium recently – Brussels to be exact.  When in Brussels one must have French fries — frites in the local lingo.  It’s a national dish. There is even a Belgium website dedicated to all things frites.  It covers frites in the cinema, cartoons, and the like. There’s even a resource guide — a “frites connection” so to speak, that lists sources for those Belgians that are cut off from the mother ship and unable to find a pommes frites fix. The site is aptly named: Www.frites.be.

In Belgium, a meal of frites is not complete without the other half of what [I think] is the Belgium national dish: moules et frites (mussels and fries) or “mosselen met frieten” in Flemish.

It’s heaven in two courses… oops, three if you count the wine too; four if you count the garlic. Five if you count the white lady [more on that later].  In the space of my five days there, I think I had “M&F” at least three times, perchance four.

One culinary adventure was at Belgo Belge  a delightful brasserie just a short walk from my hotel on Rue de Concorde.  It’s one of those places you wouldn’t find unless someone took you there – the restaurant, not the hotel.  As luck would have it, we were led there by friends who live in Brussels.  We followed.  They led.  We enjoyed.

It was a blazing hot day — record setting actually — so we sat outside at the generous sidewalk part of the place, working constantly to adjust the chairs to keep the fair-haired out of the unusually blistering (for Brussels) sun.  We also had fun keeping an eye on a film crew.  Apparently they were filming a movie down the block, and the crew was busily trying to keep the passing pedestrians from stumbling through the scene.

A bit off the subject, but I have a strange habit of eating in places that end up in movies.  My favorite brush with the cine is a scene from “Triple-X” (or xXx) with Vin Diesel. 

I know, it’s a questionable movie, but I like it for the dinner scene in the Prague Municipal House restaurant  – (AKA: Obecní Dům ) — a lovely place for dinner, by the way.  I had (what was for me) a lovely thanksgiving dinner there in 2003.

I was to notice later when watching xXx on DVD, that I was at the same table where, in the movie, Vin and the obligatory beautiful eastern European spy woman were seated.  If you care, it’s just before the scene where he uses a silver serving tray, first, as a shield to escape the hail of bullets from the assassin and, second,  as a surfboard to “surf” down the handrail into the metro. 

Of course the continuity is all wrong – the metro is across the street, not out the door to the right, a serving tray would probably not stop a bullet, etc.  But it’s fun to see life merge with (albeit bad) art.  I like bad movies.  I had the duck, by the way.   No French fries, unfortunately. 

Back to Moules et Frites.

The moules at Belgo Belge come in uncountable varieties.  The wine came in unmarked bottles.  I had my mussels prepared in garlic and white wine. I watched my friend sweat through a portion done with hot spices and curry. 

The fries were crisp and delightful, served in a bowl.  They were what I would call “shoe-string” or “matchstick.  In the French, “pommes allumettes” — cut 3-4mm square.  The other variants, by the way, are “Pommes Pont-Neuf” (10mm square) and “pommes pailles” or straw potatoes (a little thinner than matchstick), and “pommes gaufrette” or waffle potatoes.

A note about wine in unmarked bottles:  Throughout Europe, the “house wine” is not the same as the swill served as house wine in the States.  I can’t remember a time I’ve been unhappy with it.  This day was no exception.  Almost without exception, I drink the house wines.  I’ve never been disappointed. I have been pleasantly surprised.  In Europe: drink the house wines. In the States: never (ever) drink the house wine.

As I mentioned, fries are not without controversy.  Some say the French invented them; some say the Spanish.  Whoever it was, the Belgians have perfected them.  I say this as fact.  I am a self-taught expert on fries, and I’ve studied hard. [Trust me.]

I’ve eaten them around the world; from Guam to Garden City, Anchorage to Alsace, Joplin to Johannesburg, and Brussels to Baltimore.  Brussels takes the cake. 

Let me talk about fries and how they should be.

Proper fries are actually cooked twice.  We rarely get proper fries in the States.  Fact is, I think we’ve been misled by McDonalds (and others of their ilk) for so many years that we actually believe that fries should be limp, pale strings of undifferentiated stuff extruded as thin tubes and dipped in grease. Not so.  Real fries have taste; they’re not just a vehicle for ketchup delivery.

Proper fries are cooked twice: once at 350 degrees, allowed to cool, and then “crisped” at 375 or higher.  Once crisped, they should be salted while still hot. 

Near to home, my favorite fries are served at Monahan’s Seafood (Kerrytown, Ann Arbor). There, they’re finished by tossing them in butter, herbs and salt - ecstasy on a paper plate. 

Proper fries should be golden to golden brown with a crispy outside and a soft inside.  You should be able to taste the potato.   I like them the “modern” way (circa 1940’s), with the skin left on.

There are many places in the world that do them right. Another close to home is Zingerman’s Roadhouse (also in Ann Arbor).  And, they do them right in most of Spain and France.  Strangely, southern Spain seems better at it than northern Spain. One would think the opposite, given the proximity to France.

Most of Canada does them right as well — although I’d skip the Poutine version popular in eastern Canada.  Poutine has many variations, but it’s generally a dish of fries covered with cheese curds, hot (usually brown) gravy, and — of all things — green peas.  Peas!?  I’m brave. I tried them, but…   Fried I like; but fried with cheese and gravy is just too much.  The peas are just plain weird. 

While I’m on the subject, for the most part even the Brits make better fries than most of the US, although one variant — the “chip butty buddy” — is something that also stretches even my tolerance for fried foods.  Imagine: a sandwich made of two pieces of white bread, French fries and mayonnaise.  Finish that off with a deep-fat fried Twinkie, and a Diet Coke, and you’d probably have a winner in the American school lunch program.

Brussels is French fry heaven – a heaven of cobblestones, a polyglot French and Flemish, and the scent of waffles in the air.  Brussels is a city whose mascot is a statue of a boy peeing in a fountain — “le maninquin pis” — by the way.  For special occasions, they dress him up in different clothes.  Slightly strange, if you ask me.  Personally, just between you and me, I find Brussels kind of unfriendly, cold and slightly full of itself – a bit like Washington DC – but (unlike DC) they make good frites. 

Belgian food, however, is ranked among Europe’s finest.  Most of the restaurants serve French cuisine, by the way. Supposedly even the French admit that Brussels has terrific French food.  I LIKE French food, and — as you might be able to ascertain from the words above — I also like French Fries.

Now, for background, traditional Belgian foods also include something they call Gaufres.  Again, you’ve got to love ‘em. (We know them as Belgian Waffles.) They are eaten in the afternoon, by the way.  Not for breakfast.

On the other hand, they also have these traditional, and really yucky, shrimp croquettes — made with their “famous” grey shrimp.  Famous for what, I don’t know.  Maybe I’m touchy, but these things look like they’re made of watery grey mud, breaded and deep fat fried. They taste like sea water and sewage and have the consistency of gritty mud.  It even kind of sticks to your teeth like mud. [Not that I eat that much mud.] When you consider that they are FRIED — and frying improves everything — and they still taste that bad…  Well, yuck is the only word that comes to mind.

Anyway, in my meager roster of restaurants in Brussels, another place for moules et frites is the Auberge des Chapeliers (near as I can figure it means the “hat makers lodge”).  In reality, your choices are innumerable – every village in Belguim will have at least one “friterie” or “fry stand.”  But I like the Auberge.  I’ve been there several times.  The first time was with Mike Litz, a friend from DC who’s now the E.D. of OneWorld USA.  I can’t quite remember why we were there, but Mike, it seems, had grown up in Brussels.  So, we trusted him as he led a rag-tag group of ugly Americans (and me) through the winding streets of a strange city. In the end, our trust was well placed.

The Hat-Maker’s house is in kind of a touristy area - but it’s been there for over 200 years; as a restaurant. I figure that a 200 year-old restaurant must be doing something right. The décor is 16th\ 17th century Germanic - lots of carved wood and BIG furniture.  Their moules et frites are grand.

It’s right off the Grand-Place (big town square) in downtown Brussels, and just around the corner from dozens of amazing chocolatiers.  What’s nice about these chocolatiers is that they give free samples.  One can wander from store to store just sampling chocolate truffles.  It’s easy to hit ten or so before you need to stop and shake off the chocolate buzz.  The Belgians know how to make chocolate.  It should be sold by prescription.

Speaking of chocolate, there is a traditional desert called a “dame blanche” (or “white lady”) that I must mention.

[Even in French it's a bit weird to hear yourself say, "ahh, yeah, for desert, I'll take da white lady...]

You’ll find it — or some variation — on just about every menu.

My favorite variant is very non-politically-correct.  It’s two scoops of vanilla ice cream, each ice cream scoop is topped with a strategically placed raspberry, and some additional - “artfully”- placed whipped cream so as to suggest the shape of a women’s body.  Perhaps “suggest” is not quite the right word.  Suffice it to say, I’d be embarrassed to order it were I out to dinner with my mother.

The lady is supplied with what could be best described as a gravy-boat of melted dark chocolate.  One needs to be careful not to just take to spooning hot dark chocolate straight from the gravy boat in to one’s mouth.  I don’t even LIKE chocolate that much.  Before you know it, you’re likely to hear yourself saying:

“Yeah, I’ll take ‘nother if those, what ya-call-its, ahh, da white lady.”  Wait a minute, isn’t “white lady” slang for heroin? Uh oh.  This stuff is addictive.

Back to the Auberge, it’s a three-storied, yet still tiny, restaurant. Tiny, tiny, tiny. Tiny stairs up and down, with tiny rooms, packed with wooden tables and chairs. I’ve been there with groups of twenty and groups of two.  No problem. 

The mussels you can get multiple ways, with wine, with garlic, with MORE garlic, with wine and garlic, with some vegetables thrown in, with more garlic, vegetables, and wine, and more garlic, and, of course, frites – just about as perfect as can be - not cut too big and yet not “shoestring” either.  Fries fried to a perfect crispy crunch.  Frites, by the way, are seldom – if ever – served with Ketchup.  In Brussels you’re likely to get a choice of mayonnaise or malt vinegar.  I prefer the vinegar.  Besides, the fries are so good you don’t need the ketchup. 

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