The questionable glorification of french fries

I enjoy fries! I believe that fries are one of the most common side dishes that go along with traditional American dishes like burgers, and steak, or as a main meal by itself. Have you ever had the impulse to take the time out of your day to commute to a restaurant just to try a specific meal or side dish? As someone who has let me tell you, getting fries from “Jm Curley” in Boston at 1:30 a.m. will not be worth it! Granted that’s a very specific situation to be in at 1:30 in the morning, but it made me realize an opinion I had that was very intriguing. I think that regular potato cut fries are an overrated side dish in American meals, typically not bad but not the best with every American meal. I know that is a very controversial statement to make amongst my fellow Americans, but I have my reasonings. Fast food chains became very popular in America before the 1930s in 1921 with the debut of White Castle, which started selling the niche of fast food restaurants serving burgers that came with fries. Now in 2023, there is a huge increase in fast food eating with 201,865 restaurants just in America alone. Most fast food chains’ french fries have an average nutritional value of 117 grams per medium serving which is around 365 calories, which is about 18.25% of your daily calorie intake as a person who identifies as a woman, and 14.6% of your daily calorie intake as a person who identifies as a man. As delicious as fries can be, the percentage of intake that enters your body can lead to an unhealthy habit if you were to have fries as a side dish or main meal all the time. The saltiness, crunch, and hot texture of fresh fries can be a warm and delicious feeling on your tastebuds, but once the fries’ temperature drops before you finish them all in one sitting that warm and delicious feeling disappears. To discover if any other people had this opinion I have on french fries I interviewed 17-year-old student Saqira Lewis from TechBoston Academy who said “I enjoy fries, I would defend Chick-fil-A and Burger King’s fries”. Her statement directs my point that fast food in America has branded the idea that fries go with every meal. As an average American fast food eater I’d assume maybe reading this that the fast food industry has sold us the idea that potato fries are the perfect side dish. You may have heard someone say the phrase of how Mcdonald’s fries are better than any other fast food place’s fries like possibly Wendy’s. But the realistic aspect of this debate is just asking “which fries as a side dish do you prefer more?” Now all McDonald’s and Wendy’s controversy aside, I didn’t leave my opinion of thinking fries are an overrated American side dish. So it was my responsibility to track down another person to see if someone else might have held that same opinion as me. With that tracking, I found Arron Zaubi who is a 28-year-old teacher at TechBoston Academy who I also interviewed for this article. Zaubi is a teacher that told me, “I think fries are appropriately rated and sometimes an acceptable dish” but from the interview, Zaubi told me “my go-to side dishes at restaurants are usually veggies, salads, or rice”. He isn’t telling me that fries are overrated but he is a prime example of how other side dishes can be a better way to go with main dishes, unlike french fries. Nevertheless, during my interview with Zaubi, he told me he had gone to the restaurant “Boston Chop” just to try their bottomless fries and they were completely worth the trip. However, I believe that the only reason he enjoyed the bottomless fries so much is that they came out fresh and hot every time. This brings me back to my point from earlier that once fries aren’t fresh anymore the enjoyment of eating them is gone. Even if french fries are a little lukewarm, the crunch and first initial warmth of the dish are gone. I generally feel that if you can’t have food at room temperature or even cold that dish is not that great of a dish. A dish that you can take straight out of the fridge or right off the table in my opinion is a very good dish that holds itself well. The criteria of what makes french fries good are solely based on the temperature, the seasoning, the way it’s cut, and the crunch. The criteria for foods such as pizza or chicken cooked in any way are mostly always based off of mostly just how they taste and how they are presented. You may have never noticed that there aren’t major controversial debates based on those ,unlike how major these debates on fries could be. So I believe that my opinion does still stick that fries are an overrated American side dish, main dish, and in general.