Seems like almost all nations in the world eat fries (or chips, as they say in the UK) but depending on where you are with different sauces.

For those thinking of coming to the Empeg meet in the Netherlands, here's what we do to our fries, in order of popularity:

Patat met: Fries topped with mayonaise

Patat speciaal: Topped with a mixture of curry sauce (a sort of spicy ketchup), mayonaise and chopped unions.

Patat sate: topped with sate sauce (peanutbutter sauce)

Patat oorlog (=war): depending on where you are in NTH, this could be a mixture of patat speciaal with sate or mayonaise with sate.

Patat stoof: topped with threads of meat in thick gravy

All these delicacies are available from any "cafetaria" whcih can be found almost anywhere, no doubt there's one close by to the venue of the meet.

So in the UK they pour malt vinegar over it, in the US ketchup, France mustard. What else?

For me there are two options: Ketchup or Catsup

But I do have a few very bizzare friends who like to eat them with either mayonaise or a mayo/ketchup mixture. I'm scared for them.

Tabasco!

I order a cup of Thousand Island Dressing on the side, and dip my fries in that.

If they're restaurant chips (which tend to be quite dry), I just sprinkle a little salt on them.

If they're (Fish &) Chip shop chips, which are more greasy, then with lashings of salt and lashings of (malt) vinegar.

If it's McD's fries we're talking about, then I usually pick up a cup of BBQ or light curry sauce and dip them in that.

If they've come as part of Sausage, Chips and Beans, then I either put a little Ketchup on them, or eat them with the beans.

If they've come as part of an all-day-breakfast, then definitely ketchup, although dipping them in the egg yolk is good too.

A little salt and I am happy. Nothing else for me. But I am wierd, everyone else I know uses Ketchup.

Your friends Dutch by any chance ?

Mmmmm... Chili and/or cheese for me. Actually, here, some people eat fries with roast beef gravy on french toast. Otherwise known as the French Fry Po Boy.

McDonalds Fries: Lots of ketchup or their Sweet & Sour Sauce

Diner Fries: medium amount ketchup

Seasoned, Waffle, or Curly fries: A smaller amout of ketchup

When in Canada: Gravy or Vinegar. In Montreal, just about every fast food chain sells fries with gravy.

I've actually tried most of that list apart from the chopped onions bit and the gravy one.
Normally I'd have chips with mayonaise + ketchup or curry sauce if available.

- Trevor

For chip shop chips (with a nice piece of cod) it has to be HP sauce for me.

When in Canada: Gravy or Vinegar. In Montreal, just about every fast food chain sells fries with gravy.

In Montreal, you get cheese and gravy, usually. Although I was wondering if that combination (poutine) counts as a completely separate dish, and is no longer chips with a topping.

Richard.

Hmmm. At McDonalds and KFC (PFK there) the pictures were only with gravy. I wouldn't get cheese anyway. I usually don't eat cheese.

Mmmmm...poutine!

-Zeke

OK... wtf does PFK stand for?

I would guess ``Poulet Frit Kentucky''.

Hmmm. At McDonalds and KFC (PFK there) the pictures were only with gravy. I wouldn't get cheese anyway. I usually don't eat cheese.

You don't get the good poutine from McDonalds! But anyway, are you sure? In my (now dated) memory the cheese was in the picture, but hiding underneath the gravy. If you like, it was stealth cheese, that can be discerned only through its distinctive contours.

Richard.

If the cheese was under the gravy, that may have been why I didn't take note of it. I am not a french speaker, and fromage was not in my immediate vocabulary at the time.

Hmm... and here I was thinking that most Canadians spoke english. I just always assumed it was like it is here - some people speak french, but they speak english too. I need to get out more.

Montreal is in Quebec and in Quebec, French is the default language. The few times I have been there, I only encountered one person that did not speak english. Everywhere else in Canada, English seems to be the default language.

Poutine is french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds. Don't accept regular cheese as a substitute! Typically, the cheese curds are white, so the don't really look much different in a picture than french fries do after they've been covered in gravy.

FWIW, I've had a lot of Americans ask me if there's any special "Canadian" foods. The only thing I can think of is poutine.

If you ever order it, you'll want to be careful about pronunciation, since a little minor slip can have you asking for... something a little naughtier.

That's more or less correct. Canada has two national languages. Practically speaking, only Quebec, Norther Ontario and parts of Newfoundland/Labrador actually use French as a daily language. It's pretty rare to hear French much further west than Ottawa.

Montreal is sort of divided into two sections -- the anglophones, and the francophones. Don't ask me where those two sections are, because I haven't spent much time in Montreal. Outside Montreal, the english language usage drops off. In my experience, you'll often find men are fluently bilingual, but the women speak only French, and a little bit of English, if any. That probably holds true more in the remote areas than in large metropolii, though. However, I've met a number of Quebecois, both male and female, that don't know any english at all, aside from anglicisms that creep into the French language (such as "le weekend").

Fry Sauce for me. It's a Utah thing....

Burger King has "Zesty Sauce" which seems to be ketchup, mayo, horseradish and chemicals. Could it be a ripoff of Fry Sauce? It's pretty good. I totally forgot about it until you linked that article.

metropolii

Since we're talking about language anyway:

You're conflating two different pluralizations (and doing it incorrectly at that ). The word is ``metropolis'', not ``metropolus'', which is what would take the ``i'' pluralization. And, even if it were, it would be ``metropoli'', not ``metropolii''.

The ``-is'' formation is rather less common in English, and the appropriate pluralization for it would be either ``-es'' or ``-ides'', I believe, though I'm not an expert at either Latin or Greek. Anyway, this is how we arrive at ``crises'' as the plural of ``crisis''. The English folks would tell you that it's an English word now and would be pluralized ``metropolises'', but that's hardly euphonious. I'm not sure what distinguishes ``-ides'' from ``-es'', but I'd guess that the correct word would be ``metropolides''.

I worked in Montreal for about a year, and found that older people from Montreal are usually fluently bilingual. However, younger people (people who have grown up since the French language protection laws came in, about 25 or younger) are sometimes very limited in the amount of English they speak. And as you get more remote the mix moves towards French. Even in Quebec City there seem to be many more people who don't speak English. But as a visitor you never quite know how many really can't speak English, as opposed to just not wanting to.

When I did French at high school, they always told us "le weekend" which I gather is in common use in France but most of the time in Montreal (just to be perverse?) people would use "fin semaine"!!!

It's an interesting culture in Montreal, and in general I really liked it!

Richard.

Boy, those Quebecois. It's like they have a different word for everything.

The only correct option in Edinburgh is salt'n'sauce (Edinburgh chippy sauce - unique, and gorgeous) but 50 miles away in Glasgow it's gotta by salt and vinegar.

When in Canada: Gravy or Vinegar. In Montreal, just about every fast food chain sells fries with gravy.

Eee, chips an' gravy! Champion!

I've not had proper chips and gravy for years -- you can't get it in southern England for some reason. Apparently the Poulet Frit Kentucky in Bradford has frites et jus de poulet on the menu, but I've never been there to try it.

Failing that, chips and hummus from the Gardenia will have to do -- and failing that, chips and mayonnaise.

Peter

Somebody has tried to give me jelly/jello with bits of grated carrot and vegetables in it before... They claimed it was Canadian and that you could get it from the supermarket. Other Canadian's swear it's real as well

- Trevor

'metropolis' is from the Greek 'polis', meaning 'city'. Now, it's been a while since I studied the Ancient Greek language, so I don't recall what the plural form would be off the top of my head, so I had a poke around on the Internet.

It appears that, strictly, the plural form of 'polis' is 'poleis'. The iota-sigma ending is replaced with an eta-sigma ending in the plural.

polis:

poleis:

(the other graphic)

Old Bay seasoning and vinegar is where it's at.

A concoction of ketchup and ranch dressing does the trick.

I use to use tabasco and ranch mixed for the fries. That was while I was in school. I don't know if I got lazy or what, but I don't put anything except salt and pepper on my fries now (except for vinegar if I'm having fish 'n' chips).

I typically put mustard on my fries (the unsweetened stone-ground kind or "deli" brown mustard, versus generic yellow mustard, Grey Poupon, or other weird variants).

For a while, I got into malt vinegar, then I discovered that balsamic vinegar is even better. I've also had good results with Wostershire sauce (really, just vinegar plus some seasoning) and various hot sauces (again, just vinegar plus hot pepper bits). There's also a fun sauce called 'balsamic hot sauce' that combines all my favorites all in one place. Yummy on fries.

Probably the most unusual fry topping I've ever enjoyed has been tahini (sesame seed paste). There was this burger joint in Berkeley that was also a middle eastern restaurant, so they had squeeze bottles with ketchup, mustard, and tahini. It's really quite good.

I spent a week in Belgium at one point, so I tried several of the mayonaise variants, but they just don't cut it for me. I had poutine once, in Montreal, and that was unquestionably good, but it's also a heart attack on a plate. It's really heavy in your stomach after you eat it...

Tabasco!

The one and only for my fries as well!!!

You're conflating two different pluralizations (and doing it incorrectly at that)

Yeah, I know. I originally wrote metropolises, which just looked, and sounded wrong. I was too lazy to look up the proper pluralization, and it was less work to backspace over three letters and add the -i suffix than it was to backspace over the whole word, and replace it with "cities". Of course, I get Bitted and end up typing far more in the long run, but I was gambling on you recognizing that my -i was offered in the same manner as pluralizing "moose" to "meese".

It appears that, strictly, the plural form of 'polis' is 'poleis'. The iota-sigma ending is replaced with an eta-sigma ending in the plural.

polis:

poleis:

Methinks you mean the plural is ``poles'', not ``poleis''.

So it's pluralized like ``crises'', not like ``irides'', as I (admittedly) guessed.

Nothing. Plain. No sauce, no vinear, no cheese, no dip. Not even salt. Nothing. Lovely.

Nothing. Plain. No sauce, no vinear, no cheese, no dip. Not even salt. Nothing. Lovely.

Yeah, but then it has to be a really GOOD chip. A nice, big, meaty (if such a word can apply) chip, for my preference. And those, unfortunately, are few and far between.

Richard.

Real chips with salt and vinegar (when they have it or I'm cooking)
Fries usually with just salt. Generally because they don't have vinegar in such establishments.

Occasionally I'll get adventurous and have a little ketchup. Or brown sauce. Or gravy. Or curry sauce. Or salad cream. Or (English) mustard. Or McD's sweet'n'sour.

When in Belgium or Holland, mayonaise. (Can't stand the stuff otherwise).

Love baked beans. And chips. Separately as much as possible. There's time for them to mix in my stomach.

Can't stand those pre-seasoned fries that have seemed to be very fashionable in Boston fast food joints in the past year. Won't visit Burger King because of that, even though their Bacon Double Cheeseburger remains high on the list of my favorite junk foods.


But generally, Salt and Vinegar whenever possible.

Yeah. Baked beans and chips should be kept separate. If I want to mix them then I'll do it individually with each chip. Otherwise all the chips go all soggy.

McDonald's fries are quite good in my opinion when they've just been fried. Much better than the Burger King ones IMO. Best thing at McDonald's is the curry sauce

- Trevor

Don't the dutch have 'Frite Saus' ?

That's what I has on my Mcdonalds Fries when I was there, plus two McCroquets of course !!

Methinks you mean the plural is ``poles'', not ``poleis''.

Depends on how you want to transliterate the 'eta'. Personally, I'd go with -es, as you suggest, but the first few websites I checked used -eis.

Maybe that was for phonetic effect. Certainly English words that use that form for pluralization do not include an `i'.

> but then it has to be a really GOOD chip

The only way you'll get it is to cook them at home. Try the following recepie:

Use decent potatoes such as Maris Piper or King Edward.
Peel and cut to different sizes. Matching chips are boing and have no texture.
Put them in cold water as you cut them, then place the bowl under a running tap for five minutes to get the starch out.
Boil until soft, then take them out of the water, put on a tray and leave to cool. Then put in the fridge for half an hour.
Fry the cold chips at 130degC until just before they take on a colour. If possible, don't use new oil.
Take them out and do the fridge thing again for half an hour.
Fry at 190degC until golden brown. Serve. Lovely.

That's far too much hassle though. I usually don't bother peeling the potatoes and just put them under the tap, fry at 150degC, then again at 190degC.