On the trivial point of view, I've never get why don't people just buy cheap potatoes, peals them, slice them, and finally fry them. If you're not clever enough to do that be not surprised to be abused by a cartel.
Yall will never learn.
So tired of folks who uncritically think "this is the best way that things could have been". Voltaire literally wrote a whole book called "Candide" which tries to call out this exact thought-cliche.
[I totally agree if Microsoft had more vision and were competing on an OS that actually worked better for the owner of the computer in 2007, they wouldn't have ceded core parts of the computer's function to some two-bit VC-fuelled bodgers]
But to be the comment is wrong because - well - it wasn't and it isn't trivial to run a version control system on top of a network filesystem! Synchronous filesystems over the internet are awful. If the commenter had ever tried this for more than about 2 hours they'd find it hangs on the first network wobble, and probably loses data.
Anyhow we're getting off-topic. Do you think French fries deserve their success?
https://zedshaw.com/blog/2018-03-25-the-billionaires-vs-bran...
This isn't right, "good sport" or not. It doesn't reflect well on this community.
It's not that people don't know how to fry from fresh potato, it's just that the time it takes to do so is a lot. For restaurants especially, frozen is also just more cost-effective after accounting for labour.
Also the vast majority of that time is fire and forget since it's just doing its thing in the oven. Yesterday for example I made fish and chips for my family of four and made chips peeled, cut, par-boiled and twice fried in as long as it took to prep and cook the fish, make a salad and heat up some baked beans. Which is a heck of a lot more active than the easiest way to do it but hardly this huge time sink.
I suspect choice at home is more expectations and lifestyle related.
Except its totally the opposite in reality. A commercial kitchen is much better equipped to do all of that and probably doesn't also have to do it while managing children or having just gotten home from work...
> Yesterday for example I made fish
Good for you. What I fail to see you analyze in all your reasoning is what it would be like for someone that is *not* you.
When you can do that, there's no point in making french fries though.
But yes, lots and lots of work.
https://www.foodandwine.com/chefs-favorite-frozen-french-fri...
I'd argue that the quality of a fry/chip does depend on the type of potatoes used. My experience is frozen fries are mediocre at best.
Even on a commercial scale, its a peeling machine and a cutting/chipping machine, no worse than a mixing machine for making dough or similar industrial kitchen machines.
Probably depends how they’re cooked, see Chris Young’s video as an example.
Secondly, frozen fries aren't just sliced potatoes. They're a potato that is very precisely bred and grown specifically to make fries that is then blanched, coated in a specific mix of starches and part fried. Unless you're Heston Blumenthal, you aren't going to re-create that product in your own kitchen.
I make potato chips far more frequently than handmade fries because chips are much faster, end to end. Even with a french fry cutter to speed up the process.
Yeah, it tastes better, especially with garden-fresh potatoes, but usually the juice just ain't worth the squeeze!
It does, however, take too much advanced planning and frankly it's not worth the hassle of cleaning up. That said, I don't think it's really worth the hassle to fry frozen fries either - and even convection baked they're meh.
On a trivial point of view, I never understand why some people don't get that other people's existences diverge from their own experience... .
But in al seriousness, you fry them because you want to eat fries, not mashed potatoes, today...
Ah yes, the people without the time to homemake fries are simply dumb, that's all. No worries about all the people suffering, they're just dumb.
Related: why is it so hard finding a house with a range hood (and not the useless recirculator with carbon filter)?
There's also the belief that it will somehow break the main ventilation motor because of the large volume of air forced through it. But it shouldn't actually be a problem.
Now none of that is a great excuse, it isn't that hard to do, but with how most buildings are subcontracted out piece by piece for every little part, and how some things like the kitchen appliance location is not super well finalized until cabinetry is actually installed, nobody before the cabinetry wants to take the responsibility of is positioning and the cabinetry guys are not expected or expecting to install such features.
It is time, expense, and the liability of punching a hole in the roof before someone decides they want the stove on the other side of the room, or coming in months afterwards and punching a hole in a brand new roof as someone not the roofer. If everything is well established in the blueprints and nobody is going to be changing their mind, or if one guy/company is doing 90% of the work themselves its not a problem. But often things are changed kitchen wise after most of the house is built or is done by 10+ different contractors, none of which want to be held responsible later on for it. Often one company does the structure, another the roof, another the siding, another the drywall, another the plumbing, another the electrical, another hvac, another cabinetry, etc, and only the plumbing and furnace vents are going to be putting holes in the roof which happens long before any finished features like the cabinetry is put in.
However currently there is a movement to (more expensive, luxury) solutions that do not have a vent hood and instead vent through a recirculation filter (Bora).
However, two friends who love to cook or have an SO who does have had full outside vented range hoods installed when they remodeled. One is so serious they have a commercial hood over a 6 burner stove. That guy brings his own lunch almost daily complete with their own fresh baked bread. His SO has a library of cookbooks and enough kitchen equipment to feed an army.
Where I live cheap frozen pommes frites costs about the same per kilo as washed good quality fresh potatoes, and personally I think slicing and putting them in the oven with butter, salt, black pepper and herbs is much tastier than fries. To me it's worth the effort.
My stove fan vents straight back into the room. Anecdotally maybe 75% of friends whose stoves I've observed do the same thing.
It's a travesty as far as I'm concerned, but there you are.
(I live in an apartment; otherwise you can bet I would have done something about it before now.)
Not leading away moisture from the kitchen when cooking doesn't sound like a good idea to me but I'm just a child of a craftsperson working with these kinds of things, not one myself. Except if you live in like a hut with a lot of openings or something, but I'm kind of assuming this is about apartments and houses with isolation and so on.
If you didn't check and put one yourself, you might not even have a carbon filter at all.
But in all cases this setup is totally insufficient for frying things without stinking the whole place.
Yes, unless you have equal amounts of outside air entering your domicile, a vent leading outside is not effective. A recirculating vent, however, still has a filter.
Hood filters capture airborne grease, smoke, steam, heat, odors, and other substances that are produced during cooking under the hood. Without the proper hood filter, your kitchen will be filled with airborne particles you don’t want your staff breathing! [0]
Here in Belgium people just go to the nearest fry shop for their fries, they're better than home fried and it's easier and faster.
Since I'm not Belgian myself, I cut my potatoes into cubes and fry them in duck fat with rosemary instead. It's a whole other level of stink though.
Something like this:
https://www.swedishfood.com/swedish-food-recipes-side-dishes...
Due to cholesterol and LCL level through the roof (as in: doctor hadn't seen that in decades saying it became extremely rare nowadays to be that bad), sadly since a year I can't anymore. I used to love these greasy full carbs but then the stroke ain't far for me so... I'm now following a very strict diet and thankfully my levels are slowly coming down :-/
P.S: FWIW my mother-in-law still does it at home the traditional way.
I'm sure they're delicious, but seriously. Buy a french fry cutter and slice up a whole potato in one motion!