Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:25 pm
#1893330
Pete L wrote:Mz Hedy wrote:At least it's given the newspapers something else to write about. I blame the internet - 30 years ago (or even less) it'd the authr of this original piece would need to get it through several layers of editor before it got published, now it just goes out on a blog - itself a word which didn't exist a few years ago. Is the pendulum beginning to swing towards the side of the tabloid anti-PC brigade.
Anyway, when I can next get across to Belgium, I'm going to order a curry-ketchup on my next bag of 'frieten' (which are not the same as English 'chips' or the French 'frites', and most certainly not the same as the American 'fries'.
I'm off to Belgium and Netherlands next month.
I've had chips in De Hems at Flyin' Dutch suggestion which I guess will be the Dutch version interpreted by the last random Central European left cooking here after Brexit.
Any more detail on the differences between English, Dutch and Belgian fried potato products?
Plenty of variation within the UK, without involving Belgians or Nederlanders!
Who, for instance, still uses beef dripping/tallow in the UK?
Who still advertises "New Potatoes here" just after harvest...and has everyone thinking "wtf do you serve the rest of the year?"
Belgian "frites" - there are 2 or 3 well known places you could choose from; it mainly depends on your travel plans.
Are they hugely better than others?
Actually - sometimes yes.
Having been in Belgium for more or less 20 years now, I can honestly say - the frites thing is important, and there are well known places to get the "best".*
The locals, however, would much prefer if you remembered the visit for:
The chocolate
The beer
The lacework
The biscuits
The museums (who often sell all of the above at inflated prices etc)
*edit to say, I exclude the apparent local fascination with "smothering everything with mayonnaise"....ref Pulp Fiction and Paris, as the local habit in and around Brussels etc is half ketchup and and half mayonnaise, mix it until it becomes nearly a pink paste - then dunk the frites in it.
Then are recent converts to "chips and cheese" though....except they use Chimay cheese with bacon bits etc.
I should maybe introduce them to "frites et bouillant"...aka "chips and gravy"
Last edited by OCB on Thu Jan 13, 2022 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.