Belgian French-language television RTBF reignited today the debate on whether French fries are originally from France, as the Gauls defend them, or if, as their northern neighbors claim, they were born in Belgium.
The most widespread legend among the Belgians is that it was on the banks of its Meuse river where the fried potato was born.
A winter of great frosts the fishermen could not get products of the sea reason why the inhabitants decided to fry the potatoes that grew in the fluvial river basin to fill their plates.
It is only a "comic strip" for the French, who trace their origin back to the French Revolution when some hustlers under the Pont Neuf in Paris began to sell them to the hungry.
According to the new theory of the historian of gastronomy of the Free University of Brussels (ULB), Pierre Leclercq, the answer about the authorship can be solved if you distinguish between chips sliced or in the form of sticks.
This Belgian historian assures the frying of the sliced tuber could have actually originated in Paris, but that French fries in the way it is distributed in fast food restaurants around the world come from Belgium.
It is in Belgium where Leclercq situates, in fact, at the beginning of the 19th century the first establishment dedicated exclusively to this food.
The Brussels City Council historian Roel Jacobs defends the Belgian authorship of French fries because "it is not convenient to forget that in the nineteenth century Belgium was one of the most dynamic economies in the world, a place where the conditions for inventing all kinds of things were given , including chips. "
The shopkeepers who sell the paper-wrapped potatoes all over Belgium, who have their stalls on the streets all year round, also argue that the secret to Belgian fried potatoes being the best lies in their double cooking.
This technique consists in boiling the tuber first and then, once seasoned, frying it, getting a crisper texture.
Although Belgium claims its authorship, the fried potato will remain French for half the world, starting with the USA where they are even called "French fries".