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Samantha FerchawDr. LieskeCollege Writing II- 7011 December 2009The French fry: Staple of American Fast FoodIn the United States, fast food has become the number one convenient source of food for many people. Not only do many people eat this food, but people eat this foodexcessively, sometimes twice or three times a day. Back in the early 1900s, restaurants thatsold hamburgers did not have anything to go along with it. Men and women in their homesused potatoes as their main side dish in their dinners. Nowadays, not only will we eat ahamburger, we need to have a side to go along with that: French fries! This has forever changed the way people eat. Instead of eating baked or mashed potatoes, salads, or cookedvegetables, we are eating French fries with our meals. With the rising number of obeseindividuals, we have tried to incorporate new ways to make our side items healthier.Companies have tried to promote side salads and fruit cups with little success. The Frenchfry still prevails. Since we cannot let go of the French fry now that we know its delicioustaste, companies have tried to make the fries healthier by trying to new oils to fry them in,or finding new ways to cook them. Still the French fry cannot be changed successfully.Society has gone through many ups and downs in its relationship with the French fry. Oneminute we eat one and we love it, the next minute we are upset at the fry for being sounhealthy AND delicious. Over the years, the French fry has gotten much scrutiny and has
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gone through much development, but even with the United States attempting to becomemore health conscious, the fry still remains and will continue to remain the staple of American fast food.Legend has it that Thomas Jefferson is credited with bringing over the secret of French fries from Paris in 1802, but French fries didn’t become a popular tasty treat untilthe mid 20s (Schlosser and Wilson 93). World War I veterans helped make fries popular because they had eaten them while overseas in Europe and they helped spread the worldonce they got back to the United States (Schlosser and Wilson 94). Drive-ins, which werethe hip spot to go in the 30s and 40s, began serving fries with their hamburgers (Schlosser and Wilson 94). The traditional way to eat potatoes back then was baked in the oven or boiled and mashed. New-age frying was very exotic for people living in the Americansuburbs.Meanwhile, in Boise, Idaho, a great idea was brewing. J.R. Simplot was a potato-farming mogul in the mid 1900s; he devoted much of his career to creating the frozenFrench fry (Schlosser and Wilson 95). Simplot’s food chemists tried for years to developthe frozen fry without ruining the taste or the crispness (Schlosser and Wilson 95). Theteam had minor issues, namely burning the fries by trying to fry them in the wrong kindsof oil, so they would just sink to the bottom (Schlosser and Wilson 94). Finally one day,the recipe seemed to be perfected, and the first products were targeted for home use(Schlosser and Wilson 94). The fries were to be baked in the oven. Unfortunately, thefrozen fries were not that successful, so Simplot found a new buyer who could employworkers to be frying all day, and that buyer was Ray Kroc.Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s restaurants, said “The French Fry [was]
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almost sacrosanct for me, its preparation a ritual to be followed religiously” (Schlosser andWilson 92). In the beginning, French fries were not at all what they are today. Employeesdid not simply dump a bag of fries into a basket and put them down into the fryer. No,things were different before frozen French fries were invented. Fresh russet Burbank potatoes were prepared every morning, instead of coming into a package (Schlosser andWilson 93). This took a lot of valuable time from the crew members. Each McDonald’sfryer had to be formulated to keep a temperature stabilized above 325 degrees at all times(Schlosser and Wilson 93). Because the fries were prepared fresh every morning, there wasa different tasting fry at each individual restaurant. To Ray Kroc this was an outrage, andsomething had to be done.1966 was the first year of selling Simplot’s fries in McDonalds, and they were aninstant success (Schlosser and Wilson 95). Because of the new cheaper frozen fries,McDonald’s was able to increase its number of stores from 175 to over 3000 in ten years(Schlosser and Wilson 95). The instant success of the fries at McDonald’s encouragedmany other restaurant chains to purchase Simplot’s fries. Simplot’s company is the thirdlargest fry-producing company in the United States, and J.R. Simplot is now probably oneof the richest men in Idaho, if not the richest. Because of his success with the frozenFrench fry, he now owns over 250,000 acres of farmland for potato farming and ranching(Schlosser and Wilson 96). He also owns almost of his hometown of Boise, Idaho.Altogether, Simplot owns the equivalent of a small New-England-size state in farmland. Inshort, J.R. Simplot is a very successful man because he cracked the frozen fry code.J.R. Simplot paved the way for frozen fry producers, but now there are twocompanies that are ahead of his (Schlosser and Wilson 98). The second most successful fry
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