Page "French fries" Paragraph 5

Belgian journalist Jo Gérard has claimed that a family manuscript dated 1781 recounts that potatoes were deep-fried prior to 1680 in what was then the Spanish Netherlands and is now present-day Belgium, in the Meuse valley: " The inhabitants of Namur, Andenne, and Dinant, had the custom of fishing in the Meuse for small fish and frying, especially among the poor, but when the river was frozen and fishing became hazardous, they cut potatoes in the form of small fish and put them in a fryer like those here ".