The History of Ffrench fries

The relationship between the potato and the island of Ireland is a long and storied one, but it is one that has been examined in greater detail elsewhere. I wish to focus on one particular aspect of that relationship, one with explicit ties to Galway; the relationship between Ireland and the deep fried potato chip.

The potato was first domesticated sometime around six to eight thousand years ago, in the region that is today southern Peru and north-eastern Bolivia. It was not until sometime in the sixteenth century that the potato crossed the Atlantic, brought back by Spanish sailors returning home with silver from the Andes, most likely initially as food for the long sea voyage, with leftovers being taken ashore and planted.

No one knows for certain how the potato arrived in Ireland. Popular myth attributes it to Sir Walter Raleigh, who is said to have brought some back from the American colonies with him, and planted them on his estate in Cork. Another legend claims that they were washed ashore, again in Cork, from the wreck of one of the Spanish Armada. A more likely, if less dramatic, theory is that the potato was introduced to Ireland by the many Spanish merchants who traded here. In any event, the large numbers of Spanish ships that docked and traded in Galway would likely mean that the city would be one of the earliest places in the country to see potatoes.

Much like the potato’s arrival in Europe, the circumstances surrounding its first being served sliced and fried are shrouded in mystery. Thomas Jefferson is said to have had "potatoes served in the Ffrench manner" in 1802, while the expression "French Fried Potatoes" first occurs in print in English in 1856 in by E. Warren’s cook book Cookery for Maids of All Work. In several European countries, it is widely believed that the word ‘French’ is a misnomer; In Spain, it is believed that Saint Teresa of Ávila fried the first chips and that her fries had mystical healing properties, particularly for problems relating to the feet, while many Belgians believe that their country invented the dish. The Belgian writer Jo Gérard has claimed to possess an old family manuscript dated 1781, which  recounts that potatoes were deep-fried prior to 1680 in the Meuse valley, in what was then the Spanish Netherlands and today is Belgium, especially by the poor local fisher folk. It is telling however, that this document has never been produced by Gérard. Indeed, many other historians have pointed out that given the economic conditions in the area at the time, it would be unthinkable that peasant families would have the large supplies of oil necessary for deep frying.

In fact, the word French is not so much a misnomer, as a misspelling. The correct name is not ‘French fries’, but ‘Ffrench fries’; Ffrench not referring to their place of origin, but their creator. In the early 1670s, (several sources suggest 1672), one John Ffrench, youngest son of Sir Maximillion Ffrench, patriarch of the Ffrench tribe of Galway, decided to open a business for himself. Among their other concerns, the Ffrenches owned several fishing boats. John decided to take advantage of what today we would call a family discount; buying the fish cheap from his father, and setting himself up in business in a small townhouse near where Eyre Square sits today, selling fried fish to the dock workers and sailors of Galway. To complement his fish, John planted and grew some of the strange ‘tubers of the New World’ which had been brought to Galway by Spanish sailors, slicing and frying them along with his fish. These tubers were, of course, potatoes, and John’s business was the world’s first fish and chip shop. Thirty odd years later, in 1703, John’s nephew William, an inveterate gambler who had inherited the business from his uncle, lost it in a high stakes game of cards to a native Irish man named McDonagh. McDonagh changed the name of the shop to his own, and indeed there is still a McDonagh’s fish and chip shop in Galway (although it’s location has changed several times) but the name Ffrench’s fries stuck with the sliced potatoes, eventually changing to Ffrench fries, and later French fries. Thus was the world’s most popular food dish, albeit one of it’s most unhealthy, created in Galway.