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Belgians claim that "French" fries are in fact Belgian, but definitive evidence for the origin is difficult to present. Belgian historian Jo Gerard recounts that potatoes were already fried in 1680 in the Spanish Netherlands, in the area of "the Meuse valley between Dinant and Liège, Belgium. The poor inhabitants of this region allegedly had the custom of accompanying their meals with small fried fish, but when the river was frozen and they were unable to fish, they cut potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil to accompany their meals."[11][12]
The Dutch concur with a Southern Netherlandish or Belgian origin when referring to Vlaamse frieten ('Flemish fries'). In 1857, the newspaper Courrier de Verviers devotes an article to Fritz (assumed pun with 'frites'), a Belgian entrepreneur selling French fries at fairs, calling them "le roi des pommes de terre frites" (The king of fried potatoes). In 1862, a stall selling French fried potatoes (see frietkot) called "Max en Fritz" was established near Het Steen in Antwerp.[13][14]
A Belgian legend claims that the term "French" was introduced when British or American soldiers arrived in Belgium during World War I, and consequently tasted Belgian fries. They supposedly called them "French", as it was the official language of the Belgian Army at that time.[14] But the term "French fried potatoes" had been in use in America long before the Great War.[citation needed]
Whether or not Belgians invented them, "frites" became the national snack and a substantial part of both national dishes — making the Belgians their largest per capita consumers[citation needed] in Europe, and their "symbolic" creators.
[edit]France
Many Americans attribute the dish to France — although in France they are almost exclusively thought of as Belgian — and offer as evidence a notation by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. "Pommes de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches" ("Potatoes deep-fried while raw, in small cuttings") in a manuscript in Thomas Jefferson's hand (circa 1801-1809) and the recipe almost certainly comes from his French chef, Honoré Julien.[4] It is worth noting, though, that France had recently annexed what is now Belgium, and would retain control over it until the Congress of Vienna of 1815 brought it under Dutch control.[15] In addition, from 1813[16] on, recipes for what can be described as French fries, occur in popular American cookbooks. By the late 1850s, one of these mentions the term "French fried potatoes".[17]
Recipes for fried potatoes (not clearly specified how) in French cookbooks date back at least to Menon's Les soupers de la cour (1755). It is true that eating potatoes was promoted in France by Parmentier, but he did not mention fried potatoes in particular. And the name of the dish in languages other than English does not refer to France; in French, they are simply called "pommes de terres frites" or, more commonly, simply "pommes frites" or 'frites'.
[edit]Spain
Some claim that the dish was invented in Spain, the first European country in which the potato appeared via the New World colonies, and assumes the first appearance to have been as an accompaniment to fish dishes in Galicia,[citation needed] from which it spread to the rest of the country and further to the Spanish Netherlands, more than a century before Belgium was created there.
Professor Paul Ilegems, curator of the Friet-museum in Antwerp, Belgium, believes that Saint Teresa of Ávila fried the first chips, referring also to the tradition of frying in Mediterranean cuisine.[18][13]