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Comment by ourcat | Hacker News Reader

Also very popular in Belgium.

For the record: French fries are from Belgium

Oh the hilarity of that one... French people like to joke about belgian people being fries eater: anytime I hear that kind of joke I ask the french person "Do you know what 'frites' are called in most of the world and how they'll be called for posterity?".

The irony (as in "ironie du sort" / twist of fate) and the poetic justice of that one is plain delicious: the french have long made fun of the belgian for being fries eater, but the fate of the french is that fries in english are forever going to be known as french fries.

It cracks me up to no end : )

Over here in the UK, "French Fries" came over from America with fast food restaurants in the 80s.

Outside of those places, we call them "Chips" - though they tend to be a lot fatter than 'fries'.

And then 'Chips' is the American name for what we call 'Crisps'.

You say potato, I say potato, etc. ;)

Chips aren't known as french fries in a lot of the English speaking world - Maccas (McDonalds) here in Australia do call them 'Fries', and you see that word around the place to distinguish from thick-cut chips, but the only place you hear 'french fries' is American TV. Everywhere else here (and I believe it's similar in the UK) it's just chips.

One exception is a type of chips (i.e. crisps) that are thin and rectangular shaped and were quite popular when I was in primary school but you don't really see around much, which had the brand name "French Fries".

French fries are an American invention. “Frenched” (thin sliced) fries. Belgian fries are just fries.

But Belgium is not a country.

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