The Burning Question of the Day

What has happened to America’s favorite side order, the French Fry? (Or should that be “french fry” or “French fry?” It’s not often I type that particular phrase.) They  ain’t like they useta be.

Whenever I cook potatoes at home, whether boiled, mashed, or roasted, every potato is clear of spots. Potatoes to be baked are scrubbed with a brush. I really to have a thing about my potatoes.

To be honest, I seldom make homemade fries because of the step necessary for a crispy bit of potato that doesn’t get soggy two minutes after it’s removed from the cooking oil. In order to achieve the desired crispiness, the potatoes should be dunked into ice water and dried before frying. That’s just a little too labor intensive for me. Thank heaven for frozen fries and fast foot emporiums (emporia? – I’m having  brain glitches this morning.) But something has changed.

Those pretty little strips formerly packaged by Ore-Ida are no longer pretty. The have countless bits of peel and/or dark spots which could be anything from blight to dirt in my estimation. The sames goes for fast food fries. It seems like every purveyor of fast food now serves fries, whether straight of curly, with peel attached and those same dark spots as the frozen ones I sometimes serve at home.

Of course, they (whoever “they” are) tout the fact that all the vitamins and minerals are in the peel. In my opinion, that a good excuse to lower labor costs; leaving the peel (with its dirt and or blight in tact) costs less. I would rather take a sanitary vitamin tablet that to eat dirt or blight. Who knows how well that potatoes are washed.

Mr. Fixit and I decided to have lunch at Ron’s the other day. You know who Ron is, right? He’s that clown with the big feet. I said to myself that Ron does have the best, unspotty fries in the land. Yea! You can imagine my disappointment when I pulled that first fry from it’s container and saw bits of peel still clinging and spots. What the heck? This heretofore ideal fry has gone to just another spotty side order just like all the rest.

So what is the answer to my problem with fries? At the end of the meal, I had a pile of ends with peel and spots that I discarded in that great trash bin in Ron’s establishment.

(Did you notice how I cleverly avoided the “French” or “french” question? I simply omitted that descriptor. Now if I could solve the rest of my problems so easily…)