Картофель фри: история, приготовление и разновидности.

Deep fried strips of potato

French fries (North American English), chips (British English and other national varieties), finger chips (Indian English), french fried potatoes, or simply fries are batonnet or allumette cut deep fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium or France. They are prepared by cutting potatoes into even strips, drying them, and frying them, usually in a deep fryer. Pre cut, blanched, and frozen russet potatoes are widely used, and sometimes baked in a regular or convection oven; air fryers are small convection ovens marketed for frying potatoes. French fries are served hot, either soft or crispy, and are generally eaten as part of lunch or dinner or by themselves as a snack, and they commonly appear on the menus of diners, fast food restaurants, pubs, and bars. They are often salted and may be served with ketchup, vinegar, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, or other sauces. Fries can be topped more heavily, as in the dishes of poutine, loaded fries or chili cheese fries. French fries can be made from sweet potatoes instead of potatoes. A baked variant, oven fries, uses less or no oil.

The standard method for cooking french fries is deep frying, which submerges them in hot fat, nowadays most commonly oil. Vacuum fryers produce potato chips with lower oil content, while maintaining their colour and texture. The potatoes are prepared by first cutting them (peeled or unpeeled) into even strips, which are then wiped off or soaked in cold water to remove the surface starch, and thoroughly dried. They may then be fried in one or two stages. Chefs generally agree that the two bath technique produces better results. Potatoes fresh out of the ground can have too high a water content resulting in soggy fries, so preference is for those that have been stored for a while. The usual fat for making french fries is vegetable oil. In the past, beef suet was recommended as superior, Horse fat was standard in northern France and Belgium until recently, and is recommended by some chefs.

French fries are fried in a two step process: the first time is to cook the starch throughout the entire cut at low heat, and the second time is to create the golden crispy exterior of the fry at a higher temperature. This is necessary because if the potato cuts are only fried once, the temperature would either be too hot, causing only the exterior to be cooked and not the inside, or not hot enough where the entire fry is cooked, but its crispy exterior will not develop. Although the potato cuts may be baked or steamed as a preparation method, this section will only focus on french fries made using frying oil. During the initial frying process (approximately 150 °C), water on the surface of the cuts evaporates off the surface and the water inside the cuts gets absorbed by the starch granules, causing them to swell and produce the fluffy interior of the fry. The starch granules are able to retain the water and expand due to gelatinisation. The water and heat break the glycosidic linkages between amylopectin and amylose strands, allowing a new gel matrix to form via hydrogen bonds which aid in water retention. The moisture that gets trapped within the gel matrix is responsible for the fluffy interior of the fry. The gelatinised starch molecules move towards the surface of the fries "forming a thick layer of gelatinised starch" and this layer of pre gelatinised starch becomes the crisp exterior after the potato cuts are fried for a second time. During the second frying process (approximately 180 °C), the remaining water on the surface of the cuts evaporates and the gelatinised starch molecules that collected towards the potato surface are cooked again, forming the crisp exterior. The golden brown colour of the fry will develop when the amino acids and glucose on the exterior participate in a Maillard browning reaction. Thomas Jefferson had "potatoes served in the French manner" at a White House dinner in 1802. The expression "french fried potatoes" first occurred in print in English in the 1856 work Cookery for Maids of All Work by Eliza Warren: "French Fried Potatoes. – Cut new potatoes in thin slices, put them in boiling fat, and a little salt; fry both sides of a light golden brown colour; drain." This account referred to thin, shallow fried slices of potato. It is not clear where or when the now familiar deep fried batons or fingers of potato were first prepared. In the early 20th century, the term "french fried" was being used in the sense of "deep fried" for foods like onion rings or chicken. One story about the name "french fries" claims that when the American Expeditionary Forces arrived in Belgium during World War I, they assumed that chips were a French dish because French was spoken in the Belgian Army. The term was in use in the United States as early as 1886. An 1899 item in Good Housekeeping specifically references Kitchen Economy in France: "The perfection of French fries is due chiefly to the fact that plenty of fat is used."

In 1673, the Chilean Francisco Núñez de Pineda mentioned eating "papas fritas" in 1629 and women "sent fried and stewed potatoes" to the chiefs. Fries may have been invented in Spain, the first European country in which the potato appeared from the New World colonies. Professor Paul Ilegems, curator of the Frietmuseum in Bruges, Belgium, believes that Saint Teresa of Ávila of Spain cooked the first french fries, and refers also to the tradition of frying in Mediterranean cuisine as evidence. Teresa of Ávila was familiar with potatoes via her father and brothers who lived in South America.

The Belgians and French have an ongoing dispute about where fries were invented. The Belgian food historian Pierre Leclercq has traced the history of the french fry and asserts that "it is clear that fries are of French origin". They became an emblematic Parisian dish in the 19th century. Frédéric Krieger, a Bavarian musician, learned to cook fries at a roaster on rue Montmartre in Paris in 1842, and took the recipe to Belgium in 1844, where he created his business Fritz and sold "la pomme de terre frite à l'instar de Paris" 'Paris style fried potatoes'. The modern style of fries born in Paris around 1855 is different from the domestic fried potato that existed in the 18th century. From the Belgian standpoint, the popularity of the term "french fries" is explained as "French gastronomic hegemony" into which the cuisine of Belgium was assimilated, because of a lack of understanding coupled with a shared language and geographic proximity of the countries. In any case, it is unrelated to the later history of the french fry, as the potato did not arrive in the region until around 1735. In any case, given 18th century economic conditions: "it is absolutely unthinkable that a peasant could have dedicated large quantities of fat for cooking potatoes. At most they were sautéed in a pan".

"Pommes frites" or just "frites" (French), "frieten" (a word used in Flanders and the southern provinces of the Netherlands) or "patat" (used in the north and central parts of the Netherlands) became the national snack and a substantial part of several national dishes, such as Moules frites or Steak frites.

Fries are very popular in Belgium, where they are known as frieten (in Flemish) or frites (in Belgian French), and the Netherlands, where among the working classes they are known as patat in the north and, in the south, friet(en). In Belgium, fries are sold in shops called [[Friterie (French), frietkot/frituur (Flemish), snackbar (Dutch in The Netherlands) or Fritüre/Frittüre (German). They are served with a large variety of Belgian sauces and eaten either on their own or with other snacks. Traditionally fries are served in a cornet de frites (French), patatzak/frietzak/fritzak (Dutch/Flemish), or Frittentüte (German), a white cardboard cone, then wrapped in paper, with a spoonful of sauce (often mayonnaise) on top.

In France and other French speaking countries, fried potatoes are formally pommes de terre frites, but more commonly pommes frites, patates frites, or simply frites. The words aiguillettes ("needle ettes") or allumettes ("matchsticks") are used when the french fries are very small and thin. One enduring origin story holds that french fries were invented by street vendors on the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris in 1789, just before the outbreak of the French Revolution. However, a reference exists in France from 1775 to "a few pieces of fried potato" and to "fried potatoes". Eating potatoes for sustenance was promoted in France by Antoine Augustin Parmentier, but he did not mention fried potatoes in particular. A note in a manuscript in U. S. president Thomas Jefferson's hand (circa 1801–1809) mentions "Pommes de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches" ("Potatoes deep fried while raw, in small slices"). The recipe almost certainly comes from his French chef, Honoré Julien. Often served with ketchup or mayonnaise, they are popular as a side dish in restaurants, or as a street food snack purchased at an Imbissstand (snack stand). Since the 1950s, currywurst has become a widely popular dish that is commonly offered with fries. Currywurst is a sausage (often bratwurst or bockwurst) in a spiced ketchup based sauce, dusted with curry powder and served with fries.

The standard deep fried cut potatoes in the United Kingdom are called chips, and are cut into pieces between thick. They are occasionally made from unpeeled potatoes (skins showing). British chips are not the same thing as potato chips (an American term); those are called "crisps" in the UK and some other countries. In the UK, chips are part of the popular, and now international, fast food dish fish and chips. In the UK, the name chips are a separate item to french fries; with chips being more thickly cut than french fries, they can be cooked once or multiple times at different temperatures. From 1813 on, recipes for deep fried cut potatoes occur in popular cookbooks. By the late 1850s, at least one cookbook refers to "French Fried Potatoes". The first commercially available chips in the UK were sold by Mrs 'Granny' Duce in one of the West Riding towns in 1854. A blue plaque in Oldham marks the origin of the fish and chip shop, and thus the start of the fast food industry in Britain. In Scotland, chips were first sold in Dundee: "in the 1870s, that glory of British gastronomy – the chip – was first sold by Belgian immigrant Edward De Gernier in the city's Greenmarket". In Ireland the first chip shop was "opened by Giuseppe Cervi", an Italian immigrant, "who arrived there in the 1880s". It was estimated in 2011 that in the UK, 80% of households bought frozen chips each year. Although chips were a popular dish in most Commonwealth countries, the "thin style" french fries have been popularised worldwide in large part by the large American fast food chains such as McDonald's and Burger King.

In the United States, the J. R. Simplot Company is credited with successfully commercialising french fries in frozen form during the 1940s. Subsequently, in 1967, Ray Kroc of McDonald's contracted the Simplot company to supply them with frozen fries, replacing fresh cut potatoes. In 2004, 29% of the United States' potato crop was used to make frozen fries; 90% consumed by the food services sector and 10% by retail. The United States supplies China with most of their french fries, as 70% of China's french fries are imported. Pre made french fries have been available for home cooking since the 1960s, having been pre fried (or sometimes baked), frozen and placed in a sealed plastic bag. Some fast food chains dip the fries in a sugar solution or a starch batter, to alter the appearance or texture. French fries are one of the most popular dishes in the United States, commonly being served as a side dish to main dishes and in fast food restaurants. The average American eats around of french fries a year.

The town of Florenceville Bristol, New Brunswick in Canada, headquarters of McCain Foods, calls itself "the French fry capital of the world" and also hosts a museum about potatoes called Potato World. McCain Foods is the world's largest manufacturer of frozen french fries and other potato specialities.

French fries are the main ingredient in the Québécois dish known as poutine, a dish consisting of fried potatoes covered with cheese curds and brown gravy. Poutine has a growing number of variations, but it is generally considered to have been developed in rural Québec sometime in the 1950s, although precisely where in the province it first appeared is a matter of contention. Canada is also responsible for providing 22% of China's french fries. Fries are a common side dish in Latin American cuisine or part of larger preparations such as the salchipapas in Peru or chorrillana in Chile.

Whilst eating 'regular' crispy french fries is common in South Africa, a regional favourite, particularly in Cape Town, is a soft soggy version doused in white vinegar called "slap chips" (pronounced "slup chips" in English or "slaptjips" in Afrikaans). These chips are typically thicker and fried at a lower temperature for a longer period of time than regular french fries. Inspired by Japanese cuisine, okonomiyaki fries are served with a topping of unagi sauce, mayonnaise, katsuobushi, nori seasoning (furikake) and stir fried cabbage.

French fries primarily contain carbohydrates (mostly in the form of starch) and protein from the potato, and fat absorbed during the deep frying process. Salt, which contains sodium, is almost always applied as a surface seasoning. For example, a large serving of french fries at McDonald's in the United States is 154 grams and includes 350 mg of sodium. The 510 calories come from 66 g of carbohydrates, 24 g of fat and 7 g of protein. A number of experts have criticised french fries for being very unhealthy. According to Jonathan Bonnet in a Time magazine article, "fries are nutritionally unrecognizable from a spud" because they "involve frying, salting, and removing one of the healthiest parts of the potato: the skin, where many of the nutrients and fiber are found." Kristin Kirkpatrick calls french fries "an extremely starchy vegetable dipped in a fryer that then loads on the unhealthy fat, and what you have left is a food that has no nutritional redeeming value in it at all." Starting in 2008, many restaurant chains and manufacturers of pre cooked frozen french fries for home reheating phased out trans fat–containing vegetable oils. French fries contain some of the highest levels of acrylamides of any foodstuff, and experts have raised concerns about the effects of acrylamides on human health. According to the American Cancer Society, it is not clear whether acrylamide consumption affects people's risk of getting cancer. In April 2023, researchers from China suggested a possible link between the consumption of fried food and mental health problems. According to the study, those who frequently consume fried food, especially potatoes, have an increased risk of depression and anxiety, by 7% and 12% respectively, compared to those who do not. The connection was particularly prominent among younger males. However, the causal relationship is not conclusive. The results are still preliminary, and the researchers are uncertain whether consuming fried foods causes mental health problems or individuals with symptoms of anxiety and depression tend to opt for fried foods.

In June 2004, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), with the advisement of a federal district judge from Beaumont, Texas, classified batter coated french fries as a vegetable under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. This was primarily for trade reasons; french fries do not meet the standard to be listed as a processed food. This classification, referred to as the "French fry rule", was upheld in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit case Fleming Companies, Inc. v. USDA.

A 2022 study estimated the environmental impact of 57,000 food products in the UK and Ireland, finding that French fries have a lower impact on the environment than many other foods.