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If you are moving to Europe, you might be happy to know you are moving to the birthplace of the French fry.

French fries might not be French?
As puzzling as this thought might seem, there is a discrepancy about the history of the French fry.
If you are moving to Belgium, you might actually be living in the home of one of the world’s favorite foods.

As it turns out, the first potato was cultivated in South America thousands of years ago.
The original potatoes, which look nothing like our potatoes today, grew at very high altitudes.
Supposedly, the Incas worshipped potato Gods, used potatoes to tell time and many other uses that might seem bewildering to us today.

In the sixteenth century, the Spanish invaded Peru and brought the potato back to Europe.
Europeans hated it and the Scots even deemed the potato as unholy because it was not mentioned in the Bible.
Luckily, the Europeans changed their minds.

The Irish farmed the potato and it became a main staple in their diet sometime in the late 1700s.
From that point on, the potato slowly gained acceptance.
A Belgian historian, Jo Gerard, stated that the first fried potatoes originated from the Spanish Netherlands, which is present-day Belgium, in the area of the Meuse valley.  
According to Gerard, the lower class in this area often ate small fried fish, but when the river froze they were unable to eat fish.
Instead, they fried potatoes to accompany their meals.

 Belgians have an explanation as to how French fries got their name.
During World War I, British and American soldiers ate the fried potatoes while in Belgium.
Belgium’s national language is French, so the soldiers named the dish French fries.

Whether the French fry was an original Belgian dish or not, this fried tuber is part of Belgium’s cuisine and is a part of several national dishes. 

The French also claim that French fries were first developed in France.
The French call French fries “pommes de terres frites,”  “pommes frites” or more “frites.”

In fact, United States President Thomas Jefferson references deep fried potatoes in a manuscript written sometime between 1801 -1809.
Jefferson had a French chef named Honoré Julien, who probably learned to fry potatoes in his native country.

So who was it, the French or the Belgians?
Well, other people actually claim that the first fried potato came from Spain!
As mentioned earlier, the potato was first brought to Europe by the Spanish.
Some believe that fried potatoes were part of Spanish cuisine, which later spread to the Spanish Netherlands.
One curator at the Frietmuseum, which is a museum dedicated to French fries located in Belgium, has his own theory about the birth of French fries.
Professor Paul Ilegems believes Saint Teresa of Avila fried the first potato in Spain.
Someone who works at a museum dedicated to French fries probably knows a thing or two about the famous food’s history.

So, the battle rages on.
Nobody knows for sure who invented the French fries.
We don’t even know if the Incas fried the potatoes thousands of years ago in South America where the first potatoes were found.
The world should just be thankful that somebody decided to fry a potato for the first time.
The popularity has spread throughout Europe, and even the world!
In the United Kingdom, you will find a famous dish – fish and chips.

Chips in the United States are thinly cut fried potatoes.
In the United Kingdom, chips are thick fried potatoes!

Today you can find a wide variety of French fries across the globe depending on your particular taste.
You can get shoestring fries, beer-battered fries, waffle fries, steak fries and just about any other type or flavor you can imagine.