Dissociated Thoughts

Fish 'n Taters

"Journalistic Intentions"  October Entry 5 - Fish and Chips

         While the concept of fish and chips still exists in my neck of the southern US, we do things a bit differently down here - and we don't call our fries "chips". Not a big deal really, it's just that if you say you'd like some chips in my part of Texas, you would be handed a bag of either potato chips or corn chips to eat with your fried fish. But, that's just a difference of locality that changes the lingo. However, how we fry our fish is also different. Rather than making a batter to dip the fish filets into, we use a dry cornmeal mixture to coat the fish before we put it into the deep fryer to cook. Rather than using saltwater fish like cod or haddock, we tend to use primarily freshwater fish such as catfish, bass, and crappie when we fry fish. We like our fried fish so much in the southern US that we have this thing called a fish fry where copious amounts of fish is fried up for large groups of people to enjoy while we socialize with friends and family. There are plenty of fries to be found at a fish fry too. Like I said we do fish and chips, we just do it differently. And at a fish fry you can almost always find additional sides like coleslaw or baked beans and some kind of roll, biscuit, or bread (my choice is cornbread).

         But you know, as I discussed the differences and similarities, I couldn't help but wonder where the term "French fries", or "fries" for short originated. So, I looked it up thanks to the world wide web. But, there are so many different stories about when and where fries were created that I'm going to save that discussion for another day.