French Fry Diary 420: The Supersizers Go… Victorian

I caught this one on The Cooking Channel. “The Supersizers Go…” is a BBC show unfortunately inspired by Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me. The hosts, food critic Giles Coren and radio personality Sue Perkins, pretend to visit a specific time period each episode and basically bitch about the grossness and nutritional non-value of that era.

I discovered the Victorian episode while flipping through the channels and discovered them talking fish and chips. I was hooked, pun unintended. I set the DVR for record when it was repeated later in the evening so I could write about it for you fine folks.

I liked Sue right away as she was also a fussy eater, maybe not a catastrophically picky one, but still a non-adventurous pain in the butt after my own heart. The first mention of the favorite fried food was regarding breakfast. The Victorians ate fried potatoes for breakfast, among other fattening items, fun stuff like mutton cutlets and smoked mackerel with anchovies, all of which they noted the calorie counts.

Among the oddities and goodies I learned in the show include that despite her horrible diet, Queen Victoria lived to the grand old age of eighty-one. I guess fried potatoes every day are a bad idea. I also learned, and this one’s for the “Doctor Who” fans, that jelly babies, at least according to this show, date back to Victoria’s era. Maybe The Doctor introduced them early.

Something else I’ve gotten from the episode is that in Victorian England, despite the fried potatoes and jelly babies, they ate a lot of disgusting crap. I’m talking cow’s brains, heads, and ears, and that’s just for starters. Luckily though, after dinner, Giles and Sue went out to a chippie for fish and chips, a street dish that originated at this time.

Fish and chips, again, according to the show, comes from Jewish immigration to the UK from Poland and Russia. Jewish families could not light a flame after sundown on Fridays so they battered and fried their fresh fish to make them last longer for the weekend. Again, Sue steals my heart by saying fish and chips is one of the greatest inventions of all ages, even over and above the electric lightbulb.

Probably one of the few dishes they actually enjoy throughout the episode, they sit and happily eat their fish and chips, from newspaper cones, with their hands. Yeah, baby. Potato croquettes pop up later, as do many courses of garbage dinners, a trip to a pub, and a Christmas meal. Trust me, the fish and chips were the highlight of this fairly educational romp.

French Fry Diary 241: Freedom Fries

Here’s the gist. America went to war in Iraq, and it was a very unpopular war. Among the many countries that opposed this, one of the most vocal was France. In response, many American citizens started calling French fries by a new name – “Freedom fries.” That’s all there is to it. President Bush did not mandate this, none of the major fast food companies did this, and let’s face it, this was not the first time France had behaved arrogantly and we made fun of them for it.

And bottom line, no matter how much they whine about it, the French didn’t create the French fry, the Belgians did. It’s just a name, and it doesn’t matter. Come on, there’s no dog in a hot dog and nobody has a problem with that, right?

Why am I irritated by this all of a sudden? I just saw a movie called Freedom Fries: And Other Stupidity We’ll Have to Explain to Our Grandchildren. I say movie, because even though it tries very hard to look like a documentary, but it’s basically an opinion piece by writer/director/producer Carl Christman. It’s not about French fries, despite the title. Christman has a problem with President Bush, and made a movie to express his opinion – which is wonderful, because I am all for expressing your opinion, but for some reason he felt the need to sully the name of the favorite fried food to do it.

He’s not as bad as Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, but he does only want to present his opinion, and everyone else’s is stupid. Carl Christman seems to be as anti-French fries as much as he is against Bush, the war, the government, God, bumper stickers, Disney World, protest (unless he agrees with the cause), money, buying American, buying anything for that matter, etc. – it goes on and on. Just about the only thing he’s not against is bitching – cuz he does a lot of that. Oh yeah, and France. He seems to like France a lot.

The other thing that bugs me about this movie (more than it not really being about French fries) is that when he does show fries, they are from McDonald’s (and I’m willing to bet he’s anti-Mickey D’s too), but McDonald’s never changed the name of their product to “Freedom Fries,” so why imply that they did? Shame, shame, more research and more fries I think are in order for Mr. Christman.