The culinary history of the United States has been greatly impacted by what soldiers brought back from war. From WWI the soldiers brought back French fries. From WWII they brought back pizza (and many other items). Funny how they didn’t bring back real Kimchi from Korea(?).

My grandfather fought in the First World War. I remember his story about he and his buddies getting potatoes and bringing them to a French farmhouse where the farmer’s wife would make them Pommes Frites. Gramps brought back a love for French Fries from the war. Unfortunately, he didn’t bring back his leg. Gramps got shot in the leg during the battle for the Argonne forest. He told the story about the wound not being so bad, but because of triage, he didn’t get treatment right away and the wound led to gangrene and eventually the loss of his leg.

My Grandmother and Grandfather at their engagement party before Gramps left for World War I

Gramps was a hero. He received the Purple Heart, but his biggest accomplishment was how he dealt with adversity and went on to to live a full life. Gramps had gotten engaged to my grandmother before the war. After losing his leg he wrote, telling her that the engagement was off, as he wasn’t the same man. Of course, she wrote back telling him it didn’t matter. When I was in college, I went to visit Gramps and he took me to the Historic Richmond Town site on Staten Island NY. My grandmother’s house is part of the site. We sat in the car in front of the house and Gramps told me about how when he came home from the war, he arrived on Staten Island late at night. He walked across the island on one leg with crutches and arrived at the house at 4 in the morning and sat quietly on the porch afraid to wake anyone and afraid that the family wouldn’t accept him. I cry every time I tell this story. Gramps will always be my hero.

My Grandmother’s Home where my gramps was afraid they wouldn’t welcome him as a wounded veteran

My grandfather’s Purse Heart, Helmet and Dog Tags from World War I

Ironically, French fries became a favorite of our family growing up. My mom made French fries in a small fryer on the stove top for years. There were two problems:

1. The fries were never crispy enough.
2. She could never make enough fries to keep a family of five happy.

The key to making the fries crispy is to do what the French farmers wife did. The French know that to get a crispy fry you need to cook them twice. The answer is to precook the fries and then finish them off with a second cooking in really hot oil (over 300 degrees). This also helps my mother’s second problem because when you precook the fries it only takes a few minutes in hot oil to get them to the perfect crispiness and you can churn out a targeted quantity pretty quick. It is no coincidence that precooking the fries is the key to McDonalds success with fries. I’ll never forget my first trip to France and having fries and thinking: “These are even better than McDonalds!

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